Valleywag and many others recently pointed out the irony of Sumner Redstone - Chairman of both CBS and Viacom - suing and working with YouTube. CBS just extended its deal for March Madness whereas Viacom just sued YouTube for $1B.
Does that make him a major hypocrito or what?
What.
Here’s why: first off, yes Quincy Smith who now runs CBS did so some banking work with Google, but I don’t think that is the key thing here. Not all content is created equally. March Madness involved highlights, reruns, and game recaps. In other words, the person that advertisers are paying to reach on CBS (the TV outlet) will not avoid TV for YouTube. If anything, I have stopped March Madness now for years, if I see some highlights on YouTube, it might make me want to watch the games on CBS (the TV outlet). In other words, it increases the likelihood of me watching the TV programming, that Sumner is fully in control of. Of note, Sumner’s CBS has disabled the embed function… but that’s another post.
With Viacom’s content, which involved funny tidbits from a myriad of shows, the simple truth is that watching highlight reels of funny material offers an alternative to watching it on TV, with ads, in drawn out segments etc. In other words, that is exactly what TV advertisers and CBS’ bread and butter fear. Sure, maybe a percentage of folks who see the clips on YouTube will miraculously see their interest spiked so they will change their schedules and stay up late and all of that nonsense… but this argument is, for all intents and purposes, nonsense. Oh, and the argument that Viacom should love it for consumers to upload, tag and share the video is ludicrous. Viral marketing is great, but for a large media company, owning and controlling the intellectual property is important (for a small media company less so). This too is a separate post.
The point is that - and I cannot believe I am saying this - Sumner Redstone is showing tremendous lucidity and common sense in his two-pronged approach with YouTube.
Man, I am getting old.
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