Viacom’s battle with Google has its feints and thrusts, but it seems that Google is maintaining something of an upper hand. Despite privacy concerns, millions of viewers will remain anonymous during the analysis of their viewing habits, something I have said has its pros and cons: Viacom gets valuable viewing data for market trends, which is ordinarily hard to obtain, and the viewers don’t get scrutinized by a media mogul.
Then there is Lion’s Gate Entertainment Corp., another major media house, and they are looking to join the fight, only on Google’s side. Lion’s Gate confirmed they are going to work with YouTube to present clips that are ad supported so that revenue can be generated. While the vice chairman of Lion’s Gate says that they would prefer to make money on clips being watched, they are going with the tide rather than against it and they’ll make money besides.
This is a viable strategy, and you can see it being employed elsewhere with some amount of success. The popular “cartoons for adults” segment on the Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, has moved some of their new content online. This is a good move for the producers involved since they can generate more interest and revenue through online viewing habits, something their target audience supports, in addition to their regular broadcast programming. For Lion’s Gate, which produced such films as “Saw” this is a good choice as well given the likely demographics that enjoy the popular horror film.
Viacom, which produces “The Daily Show” and the “Colbert Report”, will hopefully see the value in moving towards an ad supported marketing scheme with YouTube. Both shows pander to a broad, mostly tech savvy, demographic and it wouldn’t be a huge leap for them to generate revenue for those popular shows as well. The shows have a lot in common with the variety on Adult Swim: they are more for mature audiences, they appear later in the night, and they usually have a focus on comedy which would draw the typical office worker to watch when bored. This is a winning combination.
