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BBC joins YouTube at content altar

by Navin Maini on 2 March 2007, 23:35

Tags: BBC, YouTube (NASDAQ:GOOG)

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The BBC is joining hands with YouTube in a content deal involving three channels - each a showcase for short clips of Beeb content.

Although the corporation will get a share of the advertising revenues generated by the new channels hosted by the Google-owned site, it's also planning to tap into the some of the 70 million users that visit YouTube every month, in the hope of attracting traffic its own way.

The three channels are:

BBC: This YouTube channel will show trailers and short 'added-value' clips to spark viewer interest and carry no advertising. An example is BBC correspondent Clive Myrie speaking about the difficulties of reporting from the streets of Baghdad. The BBC aims to increase the popularity of current programming and, if the BBC Trust approves the iPlayer television proposal, allow viewers to download programmes in full.

BBC Worldwide: Clips here will be between three and six minutes long and feature snippets from the BBC archives. Likely clips could come from Top Gear and BBC nature programs presented by David Attenborough. There will be advertising - banners and possibly also pre-roll adverts. The BBC isn't say what its hope are for this channel but extra traffic and revenue are likely benefits.

BBC News: Not accessible to UK viewers. It will carry around 30 news clips each day, all funded through advertising.

The BBC joins large US broadcasters such as CBS, NBC and Fox that already have similar deals with YouTube. Summing up the thinking behind the deal, BBC director general Mark Thompson describes it as a 'ground-breaking partnership' that 'would engage new audiences in the UK and abroad'.

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This is a bit of a non-announcement since it's just clips and news. *shrug*

Personally, I'm waiting for the BBC to finally release their iPlayer, which is not only years overdue now, actually looks like a decent TV-over-the-interweb service, and free too…
I suspect we will see them working with a number of companies to make it as open as possible.

The ultimate win would be for things like Apple TV to carry it and distribute for free with UK viewers etc
I can't see that happening - particularly when iPlayer uses Microsoft DRM! It's taken the BBC godknows how long to get a decent internet-streaming thing going, let alone anything more complex than that.