While there's no name and no website, the joint venture between News Corp. (NWS-A) and NBC Universal (GE) to create an online video site is going forward as private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has invested $100 million in the project in exchange for 10 percent of the company, says the New York Times.
What the new capital does is help spread the risk so it will be more acceptable to the respective boards of the public companies.
It will also increase the speed of the service as the companies work to put their vast video archives into video formats that will work good on the Internet.
In addition to the proposed centralized site, there are already syndication deals in place with AOL (TWX), Yahoo (YHOO) and MSN (MSFT), as well as News Corp.'s MySpace. People online are increasingly wanting to view their content when and where they want it.
The new site will accept user-generated content, but its overall purpose is to provide professional video content from the two companies.
With no clarity on how the joint venture will work unveiled to the public, it seems to say that it will involve some complexity and is still being worked out. Some feel the deal will be difficult as past joint ventures with competitors have struggled to be profitable and last.
News Corp. and NBC Universal announced the partnership in March of 2007.
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