YouTube Strikes a Deal with the BBC
Joe Lewis | Staff Writer

In a move that seems to run contrary to recent trends, YouTube has
actually come to an agreement with a major content provider. The
BBC announced on Friday that it has struck a deal with the popular
video-sharing site that will see the UK based broadcasting company
share in advertising revenue generated by YouTube traffic.

After highly publicized breakdowns in negotiations with CBS and
Viacom, it looks like Google and YouTube have finally managed to
court a suitor into the video-sharing fold, avoiding any potential
copyright snares that might ensue with current BBC content on the
site.

The BBC's Tim Weber has more on the particulars of the agreement:

"One of the BBC's two entertainment channels will be a "public
service" proposition, featuring no advertising."

"It will show clips like trailers and short features that add
value - for example, video diaries of David Tennant showing
viewers around the set of Dr Who or BBC correspondent Clive Myrie
explaining how difficult it is to report from the streets of
Baghdad."

"The channel's main purpose is to popularise current programming
and drive traffic back to the BBC's own website, and point the
audience to the BBC's pages, where they can watch or download
programmes in full, once the BBC Trust approves the corporation's
catch-up television proposal, called iPlayer."

Two other channels will also be available on YouTube - BBC
Worldwide and BBC News. Looking back to December, Yahoo entered
into an agreement with ABC News that, by proxy, also allowed the
company to distribute BBC News video content on its Yahoo News
portal, as ABC News is the exclusive broadband content provider
for BBC News in North America.

Well, at least it was the exclusive provider; now it seems the
Brits are looking to expand the presence of BBC news to other
platforms as well.

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