FRUSTRATED BY MAJORS, GOOGLE AIMS FOR YOUTUBE PARTNERSHIPS WITH SMALLER MEDIA OUTLETS (NYT)

By Nancy Vialatte

Faced with growing frustration in its attempts to sign deals with the major studios and networks for YouTube, Google is turning its attention to smaller media companies, says the New York Times.

While some partnerships have been announced publicly, like this week�s YouTube pacts with the NBA and Wind-up, many licensing deals have been done on the down low. Folks at the company say that over 1,000 partnerships with content owners have been shored up with more than 200 new partners signed per quarter.

�We are creating channels on YouTube for each of these content owners,� YouTube�s Jordan Hoffner told the NYT, �Those who do deals with us will have an opportunity for monetization.�

These partnerships are key for smaller media companies who see value or at least the opportunity for a valuable experiment. Deals are said to involve splitting ad revenues although Hoffner wouldn�t be led as to exact details.

Industry analysts say it is far easier for YouTube to persuade small media companies to license their content than it is to get NBC or Viacom, two of Google�s vocal critics, to give up control of their most-prized content and the advertising revenue associated with it.

�Smaller guys want mass distribution and are willing to face the risk of copyright infringement for access to this huge audience,� said analyst Allen Weiner, �It is a relatively low-risk deal for them.�

Still, there are signs that courting small media players may be paying off for YouTube. In the two weeks after YouTube acceded to Viacom�s demand that it take down more than 100,000 clips from Viacom properties like MTV and Comedy Central, traffic on the site nonetheless increased by 14 percent, according to Hitwise, an Internet research firm.

And as the audience grows, YouTube becomes an increasingly attractive outlet for media companies craving distribution. Still, many of the agreements that YouTube highlighted suggest that the relationships are tentative and that media owners are treating online video as an experiment.

�The digital media landscape is constantly evolving, so we want to make sure we have the ability to re-evaluate,� said Christopher Barry, vice president for digital media and business strategy at the Sundance Channel which has a deal with YouTube that extends just through this year. Further, many of the deals are not exclusive. The Sundance Channel also provides content to Yahoo Video.

And YouTube�s success in courting smaller media companies may not be unique. Jeremy Allaire, chief executive of Brightcove, a YouTube competitor that licenses and distributes content on behalf of media companies, said his company had signed up about 3,000 commercial video publishers.

But, some YouTube partners say they are pleased with early results.

Barry said there had been more than two million views of its content on YouTube in a little more than a month. �We have had significant growth on our Web site as well, and some portion of that growth we attribute to our YouTube partnership,� Mr. Barry said.

Whether that kind of success persuades large media companies to collaborate more broadly with YouTube remains to be seen. In November, one month after starting a limited trial of its own channel on YouTube, CBS hailed the effort, saying that its more than 300 clips were among the most viewed on YouTube. Yet a broader deal between the companies has proved elusive.