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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-youtube22mar22,0,326504.story

NBC and News Corp. (Aka Fox) in collaboration with Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL are going to create an online video site to rival YouTube.

This is an interesting development… most YouTube competitors are of course doomed to failure from the beginning. But, with so many big name rivals all ganging up together on Google/YouTube, you have to think for a moment that maybe this new site could succeed.

I’m skeptical, though. The main strength of the new site will be their licensed content - stuff from Heroes, the Office, Family Guy, 24, etc. This is all well and good - after all, a large part of YouTube’s popularity is people watching The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, Family Guy, South Park, etc. But, an even larger part of YouTube is random clips from all over the place - including lots of user generated content. Realistically, I don’t see the user community of YouTube switching over to this new thing. So, the only edge the Fox/NBC’s competing service will have is their own programming - which, while great, doesn’t stand up to all the other stuff that is on YouTube that american copyright holders can’t sue over, like clips from foreign TV shows (as we all know, a ton of popular stuff on YouTube is weird Japanese stuff).

I think this new service could definitely be a very viable portal for NBC, Fox, and other partners to put content online - NBC has had enormous success with its putting episodes of Heroes and other shows up for online viewing, which is something I definitely applaud them for. To be a true competitor with YouTube, though, it would have to draw large amounts of user content, and also be somewhat hypocritical in turning a blind eye to copyrighted content that they won’t get sued for… which is something I don’t see happening.

Additional coverage at TechCrunch.

Edit: Update! From TechCrunch:

At launch, full episodes and clips from current hit shows, including Heroes, 24, House, My Name Is Earl, Saturday Night Live, Friday Night Lights, The Riches, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, The Tonight Show, Prison Break, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader and Top Chef, plus hits from the studios’ vast television libraries, will be available free, on an ad-supported basis, within a rich consumer experience featuring personalized video playlists, mashups, online communities and video search. Plus, the extensive programming lineup will include fan favorite films like Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, Devil Wears Prada, The Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy with bonus materials and movie trailers. Post-launch, plans will be considered for acquiring additional content as well as producing and licensing original programming for the new site’s audience.

Now this is interesting. That’s a pretty awesome starting lineup… and I definitely see this is a future as a portal for official online versions of TV and Movie media, especially since many of the potential competitors to such a service are signed up for this. Perhaps this is the beginning of a basic schism in online video: user generated/foreign material from YouTube; official material from whatever this new thing is going to be. I think the success of this new site is going to ride 100% on how smart they are about monetizing it. If they don’t DRM it and have reasonable amounts of advertising, I think it will explode. If they go the route the RIAA and MPAA have been pushing for so long, DRM the hell out of everything, have ads everywhere, and charge for all the best content… well, we’ll see.