Has NBC Figured Out Web Video? Sarah Palin/Tina Fey A Hit On NBC.com, Hulu, Not YouTube
We've seen this movie before, of course. In the past, the clip would air on NBC, but its Web audience would watch almost exclusively on YouTube. Back in December 2005, it was hard to feel sympathetic for NBC execs who complained about "Lazy Sunday" running on Google's video site instead of theirs, since NBC's site didn't have the clip at all.
But now, nearly three years later:
- NBC.com is pretty good: Decent player, reasonably easy to find what you need, and many clips are embeddable. Viewers get what they want; NBC gets to earn a few extra pennies from showing them an extra ad.
- Hulu is very good: Good player, easy to find what you want, and all clips are embeddable. Viewers get what they want, and NBC, along with Fox and Providence Equity Partners, who own the site, gets a few extra pennies.
- At least as important: You can't find the clips on YouTube. As of late Monday afternoon, YouTube offered plenty of clips of Tina Fey's first turn as Palin, which ran three weeks ago. But if you wanted to see this weekend's sketch you were out of luck: You could only find small snippets, or stories about the sketch, or spam masquerading as the sketch. We don't know if that's because NBC is spending a lot of time sending takedown notices to YouTube, or if YouTube is being extra vigilant about filtering. But it's certainly not a coincidence.
Result: As of Monday afternoon, NBC.com said it had generated 1.7 million views of the clip. Hulu doesn't release numbers, but since the site generates more traffic than NBC.com, we'll assume it did at least a couple hundred thousand, since it is one of its most popular clips.. Meanwhile, there's still a huge audience on YouTube that is clamoring to see the clip: according to video tracker TubeMogul, about 1.7 million people have viewed things that pretended to be the sketch by Monday afternoon.
One popular school of Internet thought holds that NBC execs still don't get it: If they'd only let Google distribute their stuff, they'll ultimately get it in front of many more people. And that means either more video views, or, even better, more TV eyeballs. But we derive a different lesson. NBC is never going to match Google eyeball for eyeball. But it's proving that when it comes to its premium content -- stuff you can sell ads around -- it can do just fine on its own. And it can keep whatever ad revenue it generates.
For now, the pennies it makes from NBC clips on the Web are meaningless. And ultimately, it wouldn't be surprising to see NBC allowing its stuff back on YouTube. But now that it's proven that it can distribute its video on the Web quite effectively, it's going to have a lot more bargaining power when it does start negotiating with YouTube again.
See Also:
Surprise! SNL Sarah Palin Parody Getting More Views On NBC.com Than On YouTube
YouTube Thanks ABC For A Great Sarah Palin Interview
Jon Stewart Getting Plenty Of Lipstick For Sarah Palin Video
Fox News' O'Reilly Stomps Olbermann With Obama Interview
(PS, authenticity is one of the few naturally scarce forms of digital information.)
Watching Colbert and Stewart instead
Anything else on bittorrent
I learned that Hulu is blocked outside the US and by many corporate firewalls.
FWIW, the YouTube version of Fey-as-Palin-Poehler-as-Hillary has over 2.3 million hits. And the quality is recorded-on-a-circa-1980s-VCR awful.
So I'm not sure you can say NBC's figured it out yet.
This is simply a result of NBC's vigilance to keep YouTube from posting it, has nothing to do with picture quality. Nothing. Whether it's featured content or UGC, media consumers will simply watch whatever is easiest to find. In this case, the majority of the people looking for this video went to YouTube, couldn't find what they were looking for, went to their browser, searched something along the lines of Sarah Palin Tina Fey / Palin skit (whatever - low odds they searched NBC/SNL/Saturday Night Live bc nobody watches it) and eventually found what they were looking for.
So NBC wasted time/$ assuring YouTube didn't post it and kept a hungry audience from getting more engaged and interested in their most successful SNL product/skit in a real long time. Thus, giving it the viral capability it needed instead of annoying hungry viewers. Instead of 1.7 on NBC they could have gotten twice that on YouTube which would help them better monetize what is for sure to be a hit skit for the next months on the network, god forbid the next four years.
This old Lazy Sunday NYtimes article will make you laugh... $1.99 for 'Lazy Sunday' on iTunes... doh!
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/business/media/20youtube.html
Thus, giving it the viral capability it needed instead of annoying hungry viewers. Instead of 1.7 on NBC they could have gotten twice that on YouTube which would help them better monetize what is for sure to be a hit skit for the next months on the network, god forbid the next four years.
Is the one that most new media people who don't work at big media companies make. I disagree. Monetization doesn't matter right now, since no ones making much money at all from these videos. So it doesn't hurt NBC if they're "losing" another 1.7M views. But if they can provide a reasonable alternative to YouTube, which is the entire point of Hulu, then by the time there is a real market for Web video, they can negotiate with YouTube from a position of strength.
"Meanwhile, there's still a huge audience on YouTube that is clamoring to see the clip: according to video tracker TubeMogul, about 1.7 million people have viewed things that pretended to be the sketch by Monday afternoon."
Interesting point: 1.7 million attempts to view the clip but instead retrieved something that was something else. I consider this significant. It indicates that someone was hard at work "remixing" the original content, or just baiting/spamming searches.
I think that going forward If you want to make certain you're getting the genuine article, trot on over to its rightful owner.
Guarantee of authenticity is one of the few things that a content owner can control, economically and without the consumer base having to pay more for less (e.g. DRM-enabled hardware). As editing tools get cheaper, a real issue will be finding the original work among a sea of mostly-garbage fan-edits.
This is something content owners can charge for. They may well have already figured this out. Don't underestimate them.
Is there a word for backwards astroturfing?
here's a real one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMDBWHuTCy0
and here's a spam one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgHLp5Fu6r0&feature=related
http://palinquotes.sillycloud.com
Ha!!
However, If another 1.7 million views is nothing to NBC then I can guarantee you that Youtube caring about another 1.7 million views is laughable considering Youtube's @ 12x Hulu viewership.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/youtube.com+hulu.com/?metric=uv
Hulu will never catch it... Hulu meet Kijiji
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/kijiji.com+craigslist.org/?metric=uv
YouTube doesn't care either way. Simply a marketing vehicle that networks should embrace like music biz has the music video as a marketing expense however in this case there's no expense bc Youtube is a free place to market/advertise. Exactly while all music videos are on Youtube now... give them what they want!
I understand the position of strength long-term argument, however web video behavior will never change in this case. Short format is all about immediate gratification and monetization of it will move to real-time sooner than later. People aren't going to YouTube/Hulu to watch the full show or anything of the sort, that's a fact and always will be. Now if I wanted to watch a full rerun of the show in a time ive set aside in my day @ home or on my ipod on train then yeah I'll go to the source but that's old news.
Oh and 1.7 million is understated, I guarantee they missed a lot more than that which would bother me if I was trying to generate viewership for one of my darling network shows that needs all the help it can get. Id bet majority of viewers have no clue that SNL is even on NBC or care for that matter
Advice to NBC/Hulu - start advertising in the bottom corner of SNL - "go to Hulu.com to view any of tonight's skits" and post them in realtime which will help search results on all engines. AND that is for sure something I'd respond to as a viewer to make me choose Youtube of Hulu!
Cheers
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