(Associated Press via NewsEdge) NBC Universal and News Corp. joined forces with several major Internet companies to distribute TV shows, video clips and movies online in an effort to better control their programming and counter competition from YouTube.
The new network, which would launch this summer, comes in response to the explosive growth Google's YouTube, a do-it-yourself video-sharing site that is being sued by Viacom, another major media company, for copyright infringement.
The venture is aimed at giving broadcasting companies like NBC and News Corp., which owns the Fox broadcast network and the Twentieth Century Fox movie and TV studio, greater control over how their shows are distributed on the Internet.
NBC, a unit of General Electric, also owns the Universal film studio and several cable channels including Bravo.
Rather than create one online destination, the shows will be available through a number of Web sites that already receive large amounts of visitors, including Yahoo, Time Warner 's AOL, Microsoft's MSN, and MySpace, which is owned by News Corp.
NBC, Fox and other TV networks have been scrambling to find ways to distribute their shows online in a way that they can control and generate revenue from advertising.
Several media companies have experimented with ways to stream video of their shows over the Internet and sell advertising to support it, but no clear business model has yet emerged.
© 2007 The Associated Press
© 2007 Dialog, a Thomson business. All rights reserved