YouTube has seen views on its site drop precipitously over the past five months, as the Google video-sharing site transitions away from getting users to click on more videos, to getting them to engage with more long-form content. However, the 28 percent drop in video views since December is an expected side effect of that transition, Ad Age reports. On March 15, YouTube tweaked its recommendation system to favor time spent with a video or channel over clicks in determining which videos to show users. "Our goal is -- we want users to watch more and click less," said Cristos …

Adweek talks to one unnamed ad buyer who questions YouTube's new offering in the wake of its "brandcast" presentation in New York a few weeks ago. For starters, YouTube is asking for $5 million for yearlong, all-inclusive sponsorships of the new YouTube partner channels (of which there will be more than 50), while pre-roll ads appearing before video content on these channels will be sold at a $20 CPM. However, as the unnamed buyer notes, YouTube will be selling guaranteed audiences using proprietary numbers from parent company Google, rather than from a third party like a comScore or Nielsen. Even …

In the 1950s, before the introduction of advertising breaks in TV, the single-sponsor model was the predominant means of funding a television program. Revenue from a show was limited to what a single sponsor would pay, which included the cost of production and a moderate profit. But this model intrinsically limited TV's upside, Ad Age's Michael Learmonth says, as one advertiser didn't bring in huge profits, and there were not many advertisers willing to pay for a single show. Another limiting factor is that over time, advertisers would exert more control over their show's content. However, once the commercial break …

The Daily Beast's Nick Summers tells the story of how Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos landed House of Cards, the upcoming original series from Academy Award-nominated director David Fincher, as the result of an "unheard-of commitment": two full seasons and a rumored price tag of $100 million. Netflix has since gone on to acquire four more original series, most of which will debut in 2013. "They had better be good," Summers quips, citing competition from the likes of Hulu and Amazon, not to mention cable TV stalwarts like HBO and Showtime. He also points out that Netflix's content suppliers …

During News Corp.'s Q1 2012 earnings call, Deputy Chairman and COO Chase Carey suggested that TV Everywhere Web sites and mobile applications would help temper consumer ire with ballooning cable TV and satellite subscription package costs. "The customers [would] always rather pay less," Carey said. "I think one of our challenges it to make sure we continue to make that experience better by enriching this." He added that programmers and distributors alike could continue to benefit from their existing relationship by allowing subscribers to access their content on any device. "This is a good business model for both [programmers and …

Research from 33Across, an advertising technology company that specializes in social data, suggests that brands across several verticals are seeing more customers respond to online video than ever before. The report, which measures behaviors like blog consumption, search engine usage, content sharing and video consumption for 80 brands across 8 verticals, found unprecedented levels of video viewership and content-sharing habits among consumers. In particular, consumer packaged goods and travel stood out as having the greatest impact from online video.

Here's one way to make your ad go viral: check out this choose-your-own-adventure video created by the agency Buzzman for Tipp-Ex (a sort of UK version of White Out in the U.S.), which already has more than 8 million views on YouTube. The ad, called "Hunter and bear's 2012 birthday party," starts innocuously enough with the two characters -- Hunter and bear -- sharing a birthday cake when a giant meteor falls out of they sky, threatening to end the world. After Tipp-Ex erases "2012" out of the YouTube title, the user is asked to enter any year they wish …

A new report from video technology provider FreeWheel not only corroborates Microsoft's claims that video viewing is ramping up considerably on its Xbox 360, but also shows that video consumption on the game console has eclipsed Apple's iPad and iPhone. According to the report, which measured the consumption of professional video content only (i.e., with ads attached to it), the Xbox received 28 percent of all non-PC/Mac video viewing in the U.S. in Q1, compared to 27 percent for the iPad and 19 percent for the iPhone and 15 percent for Android devices. The report also found that the pre-roll …

If you live in places like South Africa or New Zealand, you cannot access many Web video services like Vevo, Hulu or Netflix because most of their programming rights do not extend beyond American borders. However, a new ISP called "Fyx" is offering a feature to its subscribers called "Global Mode" that apparently circumvents the geo-blocking capabilities of sites like Hulu and Netflix that are designed to keep foreigners out. While Fyx has become the first ISP to offer such a feature, foreigners have long been able to pay for commercial virtual private networks to get around the problem. "We …

Hackers on Wednesday shut down the streaming online video platform uStream for about nine hours, "The New York Times" reports. The site was being used by Russian activists to stream live video of protestors in Moscow, following the election of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the next President of the country. According to uStream's CEO and Co-Founder, Brad Hunstable, hackers used a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack to flood uStream's data centers all over the world. A DDoS attack involves thousands of IP addresses repeatedly targeting one or several Web servers, rendering them unable to process all of the …