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Just An Online Minute... NBC's Video Initiative

"Lazy Sunday" seems to have really made an impact on NBC.

Months ago, the "Saturday Night Live" skit surfaced on video sharing site YouTube, prompting all sorts of outcry from the TV network, which complained that YouTube was violating its copyright.

But the clip's wild popularity also made NBC execs realize just how large a market there was for online video. Now, NBC thinks it's found a way to tap into that market.

This morning, Randy Falco, president and chief operating officer of NBC Universal Television Group, told a roomful of about 100 reporters and media execs that the network had found a way to remedy the situation: NBC has launched a broadband syndication service, NBBC, to distribute its own short clips and video to a host of Web sites.

"In the future, when you have a 'Lazy Sunday' type of clip, it will end up on NBBC," Falco said. "And we'll make money off it."

With the new NBBC (National Broadband Company), NBC is "liberating our content," Falco boasted. "In short, we're getting back into the broadcasting business, on the Internet."

For the new service, the company has partnered with both content producers and distributors, including NBC competitors like CSTV (owned by CBS). NBC will then facilitate the distribution of video content to publishers, and will sell pre-roll ads to accompany the clips. JP Morgan Chase and Procter & Gamble have signed on as initial sponsors. NBC will share the ad revenue with both the content owner and the site that's distributing.

Web sites that offer the video also will have the option of rejecting the ads sold by NBC and paying a flat fee to run their own ads instead.

The initiative went live at midnight. So far, NBC has made some of its own video available, but the longest clips are just seven minutes. In other words, none of the network's prime-time shows are as of yet part of the venture.

But, Falco predicts, sooner or later they, too, will be liberated. The decision is up to the producers, he said, adding, "over time, they're going to want their video to be out there, in as many distributors' sites as possible."

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