November 15th, 2006
Hollywood vs. YouTube clip culture
Metacafe CEO Arik Czerniak believes short form video is not an “extension of TV,” it is a new medium with its own unlimited creative and financial potential; Czerniak told me (see “Metacafe CEO talks ‘The Real Deal’”) that he is committed to taking Metacafe as far as it can go to realize that potential.
Czerniak also shared with me his vision for forging Hollywood development partnerships to spur creation of original, professionally produced short form video.
Czerniak is realizing his vision: Steven Bochco has joined forces with Metacafe to create and produce original content for a new Metacafe channel:
I have spent my career figuring out how to tell stories that are appropriate to a given audience and medium. Online video is a fresh and exciting platform on which to experiment with new and contemporary ways of telling stories. Metacafe, with its huge global audience, passionate community and instantaneous feedback, is a wonderful place to discover the best of these new narratives.
Bochco will serve as creator and executive producer of the new channel, which is slated to launch early next year.
For Czerniak, a development deal with Hollywood veteran Bochco supports Metacafe’s goal of building “the best inventory of licensed original short video content available anywhere.”
With close to 40 years in the entertainment industry, Bochco has won ten Emmy Awards; Notable series include “Hills Street Blues,” “L.A. Law,” “NYPD Blue” and his most recent, about the war in Iraq, “Over There.”
For Metacafe’s Allyson Campa, vice president of marketing, the new Bocho led channel underscores a Metacafe creative and strategic advantage over YouTube:
Viewers come to Metacafe because they know they can get immediate access to highly entertaining videos – without having to sort through the duplicates and clutter of a video sharing site. This new channel will deliver on that promise with fresh, original content specifically created for our interactive environment.
Metacafe is not the only online video site aiming to one-up YouTube via originally produced TV quality content.
Mike Hudack, CEO of blip.tv, told me that his site’s strategy is to do an “end run around the networks.” Hudack champions “video portability to the TV set,” in particular the “serialized, episodic video content” that blip.tv attracts (see "Blip.tv CEO talks "The Real Deal").
Blip.tv is no YouTube, Hudack happily notes; The blip.tv formula purposefully does not emulate the YouTube viral video sharing and friends and family video hosting model.
Google has officially taken over the YouTube reigns, as I reported yesterday in “Google to YouTube: Welcome!”
I asked: “Will the YouTube "community" remain loyal after Google applies its advertising magic to the "broadcast yourself" formula?”
Google’s acquisition of YouTube is not a $1.65 billion slam dunk: advertising averse YouTubers, copyright infringement claims, online video competitors at its virtual doors…
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