FT: On first day as chief executive of NBC Universal, Jeff Zucker lashes out at YouTube

[DeepModem Mom]

Financial Times: NBC’s Zucker lashes out at YouTube
By Joshua Chaffin and Francesco Guerrera in New York
February 7 2007

Jeff Zucker, on his first day as chief executive of NBC Universal, came out swinging at YouTube, accusing the online video site of failing to deploy its technology to protect the copyrighted materials of traditional media companies.

“YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It’s proven it can do it when it wants to,” Mr Zucker said, referring to the site’s controls to block pornography and hate speech. He added: “They have the capability. The question is whether they have the will.”

As he replaces Bob Wright atop the GE-owned media conglomerate, Mr Zucker has a mandate to shift programming to a new generation of digital outlets that are popular among young viewers.

“This company is about producing great content in all divisions,” he said. “The issue is, how do we get that great content in front of new eyeballs, on new platforms, with new money attached?”

Yet NBC and other traditional media companies have expressed mounting frustration at the slow pace of negotiations with Google, which acquired YouTube for $1.6bn in October. In addition to questions about licensing fees and sharing advertising revenue, they have also cited YouTube’s failure to deliver on a promise to implement a monitoring system that would alert them when their content has been posted to the site....

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2b13b0d2-b62d-11db-9eea-0000779e2340.html

[Zhade]

1. ...

:nopity:

They need to get over it and realize online distro is THE way of the future.

They may already recognize that it will be possible to produce successful, commercially viable content outside of the studio system...which must scare the crap out of them.

[Bonobo]

2. You Tube and similar sites will be the death of TV as we know it. Thank god.

[sakabatou]

3. I'll wait and just make my videos on my comp

This whole thing smells.

[nashville_brook]

4. his "mandate is to shift programming ...to digital outlets" and his first day is spent

ragging on the BIGGEST digital outlet.

okeedokee.

[aquart]

7. So jealous.

[Blue_Tires]

10. NBC to Youtube:

"You're muscling in on OUR rackets!!!!"

[kaygore]

5. Doesn't this remind you of what the music industry went through

Rather than trying to stifle this, they should be looking for ways to capitalize on it.

[KingFlorez]

6. Youtube doesn't make any money off the videos

The videos are there for free viewing, so what's the the problem? It's not as if there are fees being charged for viewing.

[heliarc]

8. Not to state the obvious

but one reason is that it draws away viewers of the network shows... and when Advertisers see falling numbers, the adshares suffer. No more ad money. Most copyrighted material is posted to youtube without the advertising that accompanies the segment.

"Modern industry has established the world-market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its time, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages...

"Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarians, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years." Karl Marx - The Communist Manifesto

[SayWhatYo]

23. They make money indirectly...

Advertisers give youtube money because they know that millions of people visit that site in order to watch videos..

[silverojo]

9. Hey you mother-zucker!

The grainy, choppy vids on YouTube are absolutely no challenge to TV or DVD quality videos. If anything, YouTube creates interest in TV shows because people want to see better-quality videos of what they find online.

Because they're poor copies of videos, I quite frankly think that somebody should challenge these large corporations and get YouTube included as "fair use". Being that these aren't high-quality vids that ANYONE could sell for a profit, and that they give the public a chance to see things they might have missed, they're more of a research tool than anything. Through YouTube, people discover new music, share information, etc., and it's insane to imply that it poses any threat to any company selling ad time or DVD's of higher-quality video.

And for the record, the only way YouTube keeps porn or hate speech off its site is by that button people use to flag videos. If enough people flag a video, it's removed. No "technology" involved.

[tanyev]

11. "how do we get that great content in front of new eyeballs, on new platforms,

with new money attached?”

Uh, isn't that exactly what YouTube is doing? Mr. Zucker's just mad because the new money isn't going in his pocket.

[Justice]

12. Does YouTube help promote as well as show?

So many times what you see on YouTube is a snippet - the golden nugget - of a program - which promotes the program overall. It draws attention to something that just talking about it and repeating it cannot. I could see other media using it to promote - so wonder why they only talk about it as being bad.

[coffeenap]

17. Agreed! If I were him, I'd promote the hell out of YouTube. Use

it, it markets everything better than the canned promos and ads the agencies are producing. Doesn't cost them a dime, makes them look hip. Gives them the youth market. Nothing to lose there, imho.

[depakid]

13. I got news Zucker

You and all of the assholes like you will be re-regulated soon.

You've LONG since outlived your usefulness and have abused the citizens of this country long enough.

By 2009, when a new Democratic Administration and Congress takes over the reins, you'll be singing quite a different tune.

It'll be called "accountability for your actions."

[hyphenate]

22. Um, actually

much of the entertainment industry supports Democrats. Lew Wasserman and his wife Edie were contributors to Democratic candidates for a very long time, and Edie still does. It's only been the past ten years since the company got sold to Seagrams and others since then that they've become such nasty assholes. It's now a corporate mentality, and not a personable one. However else you want to take it, there are good people and not so good people in the industry, just like there are a combination in every other area.

The greedier SOBs are mostly young turks trying to be assholes on purpose. But the industry is already changing, and a lot of them are running scared. They cite such things as "runaway production" and modern filmmakers making films outside of the studios as contributing to the downsizing in California and New York, instead of the simple truth that many who want to work in the industry can't abide by exorbitant salaries and working with middlemen. When I was younger, there were no options for many of us--it was move to California, or forget about working in the industry. Nowadays, the entertainment industry is as close as the nearest video camera, and studios are bought out by even larger conglomerates and made even more inhuman as they go along.

[Berry Cool]

14. One reality Zucker has to face, like it or not,

is that Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC has a whole lot of new fresh eyeballs watching it live on cable because they got turned on to it by someone alerting them to one of his Special Comments that someone posted on YouTube.

The YouTube clips hooked them, then they started watching the show on TV, which brought up the ratings.

I'm sure that this is not the only instance in which YouTube has served as a "gateway drug" and "free publicity" for broadcast and cable programming, rather than merely as a substitute.

[DeepModem Mom]

15. That is a very good point.! nt

[Autobot77]

16. Does this mean he's going to cancel NBC's Youtube account?

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=NBC

[hatrack]

18. On first day as chief executive of NBC Universal, Jeff Zucker feels cold breath of death on neck

Rotsa Ruck, Jeff old bean.

[Seldona]

19. You Tube will change content delivery like Napster did music.

It already has. Look at Comedy Centrals website. They now have a video imbed feature on their own archives. CBS Video offers a lot of it's programing free with ad support now.

Like it or not ad revenue pays for content creation, and I agree that sites like You Tube should not be providing content they do not own. Once again companies will change their revenue models and sue the companies that created the infrastructure out of business.

[HuffleClaw]

20. yet he neglects the FREE promotion/ad work it does for him

idiot.

[hyphenate]

21. Yada, yada, yada

The writers of Back to the Future 2 (ironically from Universal/MCA at the time) had it right when Doc told Marty that things were much better when they decided to get rid of all lawyers. It was said in jest, and we would have total anarchy if that happened, but let's face it--the sentiment is there. ;)