Youtube has this week launched a brand new section to its service – offering thousands of full length TV programmes from over 60 different networks worldwide, including flagship Channel 4 shows such as Peep Show and Hollyoaks. It is expected that the full C4 catalogue will be available by 2010, in a deal which promises to finally settle the previous disputes between Youtube and media companies which saw content frequently removed due to unlicensed use.
The move obviously makes sense for all parties concerned – especially for Youtube, which has yet to turn a profit since Google acquired it three years ago. This added feature (plus the removal of the headache of constant disputes over unlicensed content), should amount to a significantly healthier balance sheet – though there still remains plenty of content for which no deals are in place at the moment. Nonetheless, this marks a huge step forward in Youtube’s progress towards reaching its full potential (i.e. blanket online video market domination).
The key thing for Youtube is to reach that tipping point of legal TV content, after which non-participating media producers will have less and less to gain from keeping their content exclusively for their own websites. Naturally Youtube haven’t released a full breakdown of the ad revenue-sharing agreement which has been struck to finally appease those such as C4, but presumably it takes into account the fact that current ad revenue is only a fraction of what we can expect to see in the next few years – especially after such changes as this have been implemented.
There are of course plenty of worrying aspects about having such a dominant one-stop shop for all online video content (imagine if Murdoch bought it up for one…), but though such a thing might be possible with Youtube – it is by no means guaranteed, and will take some time before it can be realised regardless. However – there are monopoly worries which will surely creep into consideration, but that is a story for another time (and another year i expect).
What we are  here concerned with today is simply the fact that Youtube has grown legitimately bigger with a great new service, and from a users’ point of view that can only be a good thing. Presumably the content will still be ring-fenced according to country access (no C4 show access from outside the UK for example), although if such a deal could be struck as to remove this barrier, then the Youtube’s distribution potential would really start to look scary…
Dejan Levi