• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 29, 2007

At an OMMA Video panel, reps from major media companies and Web giants knocked heads over who should control the end-user experience for Web videos.

"Not being [platform] network agnostic" is the biggest drag on growth for media companies, said Karin Gilford, vice president and general manager, Yahoo Entertainment.

"Remove the restrictions," pleaded Scott Levine, director of product marketing, AOL Video.

The resounding response from media companies? "No!"

"Asking us to remove the restrictions" is the biggest problem, according to Rick Mandler, vice president, Digital Media Advertising, Disney-ABC Television Group.

"We want to syndicate our player," insisted Mandler, saying that would be in the best interest of Disney's ad partners. "We want a consistent player experience."

"I agree with Rick!" responded Ron Berryman, senior vice president and general manager, Television Stations, Fox Interactive Media.

Lifting such restrictions raises serious business questions, said Berryman, such as "who controls the advertising in it.... There are a number of questions that come up, depending on which player it is played on."

Without directly criticizing his peers at Yahoo and AOL, Berryman then took a direct shot at the poor presentation quality of syndicated video: "I would say that both YouTube and MySpace in their areas are very difficult to monetize."

Still, both the media companies and the portals insisted that they are having great years, and predicted better years to come.

Fox is seeing "triple digit" revenue growth per quarter, according to Berryman.

"We have a very profitable business going on with online video," stated ABC's Mandler. He said the network has streamed 107 million full-length shows since mid-September. (About a third, he said, watched the entire shows.)

Added Levin at AOL: "We're also making money." (CPM rates at AOL are now going for below $20 for consumer-generated-media to $60 for high-end shows like "Heroes.")