CBS: We Like YouTube
As other media companies continue to look daggers at YouTube, CBS has been singing a very different tune.
In recent months, YouTube, the embattled Google subsidiary, has had to contend with a massive request from Viacom to take down more than 100,000 unauthorized video clips, as well as subpoenas from News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox and a smaller film studio owned by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
But from CBS, it’s been mostly peace, love and understanding.
“There’s unauthorized content on YouTube,’’ CBS Interactive Chief Operating Officer Stephen Snyder acknowledged in an interview this week. “Do we have a problem with it? I wouldn’t call it a problem. Do we have an awareness of it, and is YouTube a good-faith partner in the process right now? Yes.”
Snyder observed that YouTube is “growing like crazy, and when you’re growing that fast, you’re just trying to keep up with the tidal wave of consumer activity. ... They’re running as fast as they possibly can.”
Synder declined to comment on reports that the network recently backed away from a multi-year deal with YouTube that would have expanded the CBS content available on the video portal. He also declined to comment on reported efforts late last year among the major TV networks to band together for a video portal site to rival YouTube.