NBC Teams Up with YouTube.com
By Steve Donohue -- Multichannel News, 6/27/2006 1:50:00 PM
NBC is teaming up with viral video Web site YouTube (www.youtube.com) to promote its fall season.
Under the agreement, announced Tuesday, YouTube will create a dedicated NBC channel on its Web site, which will feature clips from The Office and other NBC shows. In exchange, NBC will hype YouTube through on-air promos.
The deal is noteworthy, considering the fact that NBC attorneys ordered YouTube to pull a popular “Lazy Sunday” video from Saturday Night Live off its Web site in January. YouTube posted the video -- which poked fun at Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia movie -- in December.
NBC Universal business development executive vice president Bruce Campbell was unapologetic recently about the famous cease-and-desist letter. “I don’t think we should feel defensive about protecting our intellectual property,” he said during a June 21 panel session sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York.
YouTube.com won’t be able to post the Narnia video as part of the deal, NBC spokesman Joe Libonati said Tuesday.
NBC -- which sells episodes of Law & Order, The Office and other primetime series through Apple Computers’ “iTunes Music Store” -- doesn’t plan to distribute full-length TV shows through YouTube. Instead, the network said, it will distribute promotional clips from programs such as SNL, The Office and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on the Web site.
YouTube and NBC are also running a contest tied to The Office, in which Web surfers will be challenged to create promos for the series. The winning video from the contest, which runs through July 21, will be broadcast during an episode of The Office in August.
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