YouTube Sips Up Local Content With Rev-Sharing Deal

Google and Hearst-Argyle Television have partnered to bring local news content to YouTube. The deal is in line with Google's larger push to increase the amount of local-interest content on YouTube. The move also fits with Hearst-Argyle's digital media plans to make its content available on the three screens -- TV, PC and mobile phone.

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E-Commerce Times | 06/04/07


Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google has struck a deal with Hearst-Argyle Television to have local news content from the company's local TV affiliates made available on YouTube Latest News about YouTube, with the TV stations sharing in the revenue generated when video clips are viewed online.

The deal covers five Hearst-Argyle stations in Baltimore; Boston; Manchester, N.H.; Pittsburgh; and Sacramento, Calif. Content, including news, weather and sports stories from local news broadcasts, will be made available on dedicated YouTube channels.

In addition to local news broadcasts, the content will include a new family of video being produced by the stations, including coverage of local high school sports and local entertainment.

The move fits with the station owner's larger digital media efforts, including a push to make content available on all three screens used by consumers -- the TV, the PC and the mobile phone, said Terry Mackin, executive vice president of Hearst-Argyle Television.

"We can now better engage users and advertisers with our award-winning local video content and with new user-generated content while further broadening our reach beyond the boundaries of our media markets," Mackin said.

For YouTube, the partnership is part of a larger push to put more local-interest content on the video-sharing site, which in turn opens up new possibilities for tapping into the local advertising Email Marketing Software - Free Demo market.

"Local creates relevance," said Jordan Hoffner, YouTube's head of premium content partnerships.

Local Is as Local Does

The deal would seem to have plenty of room for expansion: Hearst-Argyle owns 26 TV stations in all and manages three more TV stations and two radio stations. With 12 ABC affiliates, the company is the largest affiliate part of that network, though only local content is covered in the YouTube deal.

Google has been working to add licensed content to YouTube since it acquired the site for US$1.65 billion last year. Some of its efforts have been thwarted, with major content owners such as Viacom (NYSE: VIAb) Latest News about Viacom eschewing deals with Google to embrace other video-sharing sites, launch their own sites and in some cases to sue YouTube for copyright infringement.

Still, Google has made slow but steady progress. Last week, it announced it had licensed music from the EMI library for users to tinker with as they produce videos.

The deal is the first for YouTube involving revenue-sharing with a local television station, and may be just part of a larger effort to create a venue for local video advertising.

Other Web companies have recognized the same opportunity, but Google could create a strong competitive edge if it can accumulate a good supply of localized video content, Sterling Market Intelligence Principal Analyst Greg Sterling said.

"There is still the hurdle of how small local companies produce video commercials, but having the audience and the technology to make it happen would be a head start," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Using the TV stations' content as the foundation for local channels may also help users find video they find most relevant, Sterling added.

Ready to Respond

More than half of people who watch video online have visited a Web site or responded to an offer made alongside or within a Web video clip, according to a recent report from The Kelsey Group.

Google will be in the mix, Kelsey Group senior analyst Michael Boland noted, during what he calls the "Wild West phase of experimentation" with local video and advertising.

"YouTube has largely popularized the concept of watching short videos on a computer screen and has likewise familiarized consumers with the idea of watching short video ads," Boland told the E-Commerce Times. Still, other players, such as local yellow pages providers and portals such as Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) Latest News about Yahoo, have designs on the same markets.

With professionally produced content from the stations, YouTube may also be able to become a secondary distribution point for video eventually viewed on TV sets again. With YouTube video being made compatible with the Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple TV device, content could go from TV to Web back to TV before finally being viewed by consumers, Sterling noted.

China Promises to Curb, Not Cap, Emissions

Chinese officials have revealed a national plan that would aim to slow the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions, but would not reduce their absolute amount. China is expected to soon surpass the U.S. in total output of greenhouse gases, but its government believes it's unfair to hold the country to the same emissions standards as more developed nations.

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AP | 06/04/07


China promised Monday to better control emissions of greenhouse gases, unveiling a national program to combat global warming, but rejected mandatory caps on emissions as unfair to countries still trying to catch up with the developed West.

While the program offered few new concrete targets for reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that are believed to contribute to global warming, it outlined steps China would take to meet a previously announced government goal of improving overall energy efficiency in 2010 by 20 percent over 2005's level.

"China is a developing country. Although we are not committed to quantified emissions reduction, it does not mean we do not want to shoulder our share of responsibilities," said Ma Kai, the minister heading the National Development and Reform Commission, the Cabinet-level economic planning agency.

"We must reconcile the need for development with the need for environmental protection," he told reporters. "In its course of modernization, China will not tread the traditional path of industrialization, featuring high consumption and high emissions. In fact, we want to blaze a new path to industrialization."

Economic Development Is 'Overriding Priority'

Ma, however, stressed that the bulk of responsibility for battling climate change still lay with industrialized countries, which "are in a better position to cap emissions."

They also have the obligation to provide financial and technical support to developing nations -- like China -- whose "overriding priority at the moment is still economic development and poverty eradication," he said.

A 62-page report released by the NDRC called for stepped-up efforts to put the hard-charging but inefficient economy on a more sustainable footing and promised "to make significant achievements in controlling greenhouse gas emissions."

The measures included expanded research and deployment of new energy-saving technologies, improvement of agricultural infrastructure Barracuda Spam Firewall Free Eval Unit - Click Here, increased tree-planting and water resource management and greater public awareness of the issue.

Ma said implementation will "cost a fortune" but did not elaborate, stressing that it would be an investment in prevention.

Slow the Growth

Given an economy that has been growing at better than 9 percent annually over the past 25 years, the plan's overall effect, if implemented, would be to slow the increase in greenhouse gases, not reduce their absolute amount.

Monday's release of the report seemed in part an attempt to pre-empt criticism of China's environmental policies.

Assistant Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said President Hu Jintao will "expand China's views and propositions on climate change" at a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Germany this Friday. The summit will feature a session on global warming.

No. 2 With a Bullet

China has fallen under increasing pressure internationally to take more forceful measures to curb releases of greenhouse gases. The country relies on coal -- among the dirtiest of fuels -- to meet two-thirds of its energy needs and is projected to surpass the U.S. as the world's No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases sometime in the next two years.

In explaining the new program, Ma said global warming was largely caused by 200 years of unrestrained industrialization by the West, and it would be unfair to impose mandatory emissions caps on China and other developing nations.

"It is neither realistic nor fair to ... overlook the different stages of development that different countries are in and to use climate change as an excuse to ask them to undertake quantified emissions reductions commitments," Ma said.

He added: "This would hinder the development of developing countries and hamper their industrialization."

Kyoto's Exemptions

Ma called President Bush's new initiative on global warming a "useful complement" to the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol, but said that it should not be a substitute for the treaty, which expires in 2012.

Bush last week proposed the 15 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases hold meetings and set an emissions goal, but he would let each country -- including the U.S., China, India and the major European countries -- decide individually how to implement it.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty that caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from power plants and factories in industrialized countries. Developing countries like China and India are exempt from its obligations.

Chen Dongmei, director of WWF China's Climate Change and Energy Program, said the nature conservation group welcomed the NDRC's report because it was "the first time the national government is talking about energy reduction."

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