NBC Syndicates Video Clips Online

NBC Tuesday unveiled a new effort to distribute video content via the Internet. The initiative, National Broadband Company, or NBBC, involves syndicating video clips--produced by NBC as well as other companies--to a variety of Web sites, including those owned by NBC competitors.

"We're going back into the broadcasting business on the Internet," Randy Falco, NBC Universal Television Group president and chief operating officer, said at a media conference Tuesday. The video will be entirely ad-supported, with JP Morgan Chase and Procter & Gamble as the initial sponsors. JP Morgan Chase will promote a new credit card in the spots, which are set to roll out in several weeks online and on TV.

NBC is selling pre-roll ads to accompany the clips, and will share revenue with the sites that distribute the video clips and the companies or individuals who license them. If individual Web sites wish to run their own ads instead of ones sold by NBC, they can do so, but must agree to pay NBC a flat fee that will be shared with the clips' owners.

Partners include a variety of Web site publishers and content companies, including CBS Corp's CSTV, CNET Networks, The New York Times Co.'s About.com and Forbes.com.

Falco positioned the move as partly a response to the popularity that the "Saturday Night Live" skit "Lazy Sunday" experienced earlier this year on YouTube. NBC demanded that the video sharing site remove the skit, but not before it became an online hit that gave YouTube mainstream exposure.

"When 'Saturday Night Live' had a great clip of Lazy Sunday, YouTube made a lot of money off it," Falco said. "In the future, when we have a Lazy Sunday clip, NBBC will make a lot of money on it."

Jim Warner, executive vice president at Avenue A/Razorfish, which handled JP Morgan Chase's media buy, added that the syndication service would streamline purchase of online ad inventory. "Rather than making multiple buys across multiple sites to be in video content, we can make one buy," Warner said.

For now, clips on the site are all shorter than seven minutes, but Falco said that the network anticipated eventually syndicating longer content.

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