YouTube Begins Defense, Seeks Depositions 106
eldavojohn writes "YouTube has begun their defense against Viacom by first calling on 30 depositions from people like Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert. While the article mentions that YouTube has not revealed what they hope to gain in these depositions, I think Jon Stewart's opinions will weigh in favor of YouTube. Comedy Central's parent company, Viacom, objects to YouTube's hosting of their content. Comedy Central hosts many Daily Show & Colbert Report clips on its own site, bringing in its own ad revenue."
It's a Tactic (Score:5, Interesting)
Why don't........ (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Colbert's Deposition (Score:3, Interesting)
He also hosted an episode of The Daily Show a few years back, and you can see the real Stephen interviewing David Cross.
Re:From the (Wrong) Horse's Mouth (Score:5, Interesting)
I know for me, watching Lazy Sunday on YouTube brought me back to checking out SNL again for the first time in several years...maybe that's just me though.
Re:It's a Tactic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why don't........ (Score:1, Interesting)
Do I dutifully watch the ad every time? No. However I see the ads enough for them to have the intended effect: they increase the exposure for the advertised company/product... all without annoying me.
What if... (Score:2, Interesting)
1) Every day, broadcast a live stream of the show as it's recorded. If subscriptions are broken up into tiers, this would be the central feature of the top tier, perhaps along with perks like call-in segments in each interview, which by necessity only subscribers would have access to.
2) As soon as the show's recorded, it's automatically up for sale on iTunes and what have you, so that the passive fanbase can download it as a "vodcast" (or whatever term is trendy enough to take over).
3) Have an editing team on hand to create a shorter Headline News-style presentation to be thrown up on YouTube for general consumption. It would still give prospective customers a run-down of the day's news while encouraging them to buy or subscribe to the "full version."
An aspiring newscaster could implement the 3rd step first and then expand the format of their program as they gain fame, but an already-big name could probably plop the whole thing onto the Web at once and start raking in the bucks. From my perspective, this requires a critical mass of both consumers and producers to begin realizing that they can finally cut out a number of the middlemen.