News Corp. (NWS-A) is working hard with traditional media companies to get them to offer their content through the MySpace (GOOG) site.
At this time, only shows offered via Fox are currently available on the online community portal.
Peter Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, said that creating an alternative site to YouTube is in the best interest of media companies and MySpace. ""There's certainly an opportunity for the media companies to get together. MySpace will be a huge beneficiary of that."
YouTube and Google have been put on the defensive lately and so haven't seemed to make much progress with the big media companies who still haven't made a commitment on which direction they want to take. I think Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. smell a little blood here and are pushing hard to see if they can take advantage of this opportunity, which may only be here for a short time.
The major problem in the traditional media industry is that they haven't wanted anybody to be the major provider of services or in control of their content, so they've been paralyzed into inaction somewhat. They're doing things, but never addressing the core issue of finding new ways to monetize their content that could replace their declining revenues in other areas.
If they eventually have to make a choice, I would think they would choose MySpace and News Corp. over YouTube, as they at least understand Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. They also know that he understands what it is they're struggling through and trying to accomplish. At this time that isn't the case with Google and YouTube.
This story isn't over by a long shot. Neither is the way it's going to go set in stone. Many people thought that when Google bought YouTube it was over. But overall the resistance by many traditional companies is very strong, and they'd prefer to do things a different way if they can figure it out.
A lot of the decision in this matter may depend upon how long the media companies can keep their losses small enough so that they're not forced to have to make some big moves they may not want to make. If they can stretch it out for a while, I don't see them making any big moves toward YouTube unless they absolutely have to.
Now with News Corp. gravitating toward them, it offers them yet another avenue they could offer their content on, and so decrease the control of any one company and overly relying upon them. Now with iTunes, YouTube, MySpace, and a bunch of smaller players entering the market, it just may be the type of atmosphere and safety the big media companies have been looking for.
Not only are they creating their own Web sites for downloads, but there are now increasing options and companies they can use to base their negotiations on. If they are able to hold out a little longer, they'll probably be in a much better negotiating position than they've been in a long time.
I think the assertions by Google's CEO Eric Schmidt about how much media companies need YouTube, may be a sign that there is a lot of concern about whether the YouTube acquisition will pay off in the way that they had hoped. They don't have much to show for it yet in the way of monetization. But even more of a problem, it doesn't look like they will any time soon in the near future either.
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