Some intern at Viacom’s legal department probably got scolded harshly after Viacom released how popularity of Youtube clips of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have helped their shows.
Comedy Central clips aren’t leaving YouTube for good. Viacom, Comedy Central’s corporate parent, has confirmed that it wants to find some way to keep the clips available, and has apparently given the green light for YouTube to put the material back up. No deal between the two firms has yet been done, but it sounds like one is imminent. [Source]
I understand the various business models that could be used to make money from these clips. ABC is doing very well with its popular shows being freely available online. I’ve watched more commercials rewatching Lost online than I would on television. Revver shows a great revenue model by appending an add to the end of every user uploaded video. There are many other ways. But one way to make money is to simply let the video clips air on Youtube and keep the popularity of the shows very high. Thank you Viacom for returning the clips to Youtube!
If their own servers weren’t getting so overloaded, and they had the bandwith to handle the crush that they will inevitably get for the Midterm Midtacular, I don’t think Viacom would have made this reversal.
Even their commercials were boasting that you can get the show now in its entirety without “having to watch it in pieces from some crappy blog”
Turns out that it was a pretty good piece of advertising that they screwed up there. Idiots.