“YouTube will begin offering feature films produced by at least one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios possibly as early as next month, according to an executive with a major entertainment company,” Greg Sandoval reports for CNET.
“For months, Google, YouTube’s parent company, has been talking to the major film companies about launching an ad-supported, streaming movie service, two execs with knowledge of the negotiations told CNET News. “It’s not imminent,” said one of the executives. ‘But it’s going to happen. I would say you can expect to see it, if all goes well, sometime within the next 30 to 90 days,’” Sandoval reports.
“There’s skepticism in some circles about whether enough ads can be placed into a streaming movie to make it profitable without also overloading viewers with commercials. Another sticking point is Google’s insistence on using a specific ad format, such as prerolls or postrolls, for feature films, according to two studio sources,” Sandoval reports.
YouTube has “80 million monthly visitors. No other video site comes close. ‘We’d love to have our long-form content in front of that audience,’ said an executive with a studio close to reaching an agreement with YouTube,” Sandoval reports.
“How far the relationship between Hollywood and Google will go is anybody’s guess. It’s going to be hard for YouTube to land Universal or 20th Century Fox because each has a parent company that owns a stake in Hulu [the joint video venture by NBC Universal and News Corp.],” Sandoval reports.
Full article here.
5 Day Most Commented