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YouTube To Partner With Media Companies

Aligning itself more closely to premium content than ever before, YouTube reportedly plans to announce a host of partnerships with media companies and personalities to produce original content. 

“YouTube is trying to become a next-generation cable provider overseeing dozens of free online ‘channels’ with professional-grade shows,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

Expected partners include IAC’s Electus, News Corp.’s ShineReveille, RTL Group’s FremantleMedia, as well as skateboarding legend Tony Hawk and ‘CSI’ creator Anthony Zuiker, sources tell The Journal.

“For a long time, YouTube has been working hard to get more professional content on its site to help attract more advertisers,” SlashGear writes.

“But more than just shoehorning these channels into the current working design of YouTube, the entire site is expected to be reorganized around this new feature and is thought to have companies such as IAC and News Corp. producing video content for the site,” Gizmodo writes, citing The Journal story.

“It’s about time that YouTube is taking over media,” quips SiliconAngle.

Of note, these reports come almost seven months after YouTube pledged to invest $100 million on original content for the site, and, as Gizmodo writes, “now it seems like it could finally come to fruition.”

What’s more, as CNet reports: “All signs pointed to the possibility of Google getting into the original-content game back in March when the company announced the acquisition of Next New Networks, a video production firm that, YouTube said at the time, would work ‘in a hands-on way with a wide variety of content partners and emerging talent to help them succeed on YouTube.’”

Meanwhile, as WSJ reports, “Several other partners for YouTube's new initiative, which is trying to upend the way entertainment is created, already create popular content on the video site.”

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