Late last week, Viacom pulled the plug on letting users view clips from Comedy Central shows on YouTube. Now, it looks like the media conglomerate has reneged. One can still find thousands of clips
from "South Park," "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" by doing a simple search on YouTube. This means Viacom and YouTube are probably working out a revenue share deal as we speak.
On Monday, one business day after Viacom said it would pull the plug, Viacom sent
Red Herring the following (cryptic) statement: "We want our audiences to be able to access our programming on
every platform, and we're interested in having it live on all forms of distribution in ways that protect our talented artists, our loyal customers and our passionate audiences." The statement says
nothing about removing Comedy Central and other Viacom clips from YouTube.
"I think we'll see a lot of this kind of activity where companies may threaten to sue one day and end up happy
partners the next," says Jupiter Research analyst Joe Laszlo. "All of the major media companies are still feeling their way."
Read the whole story at Red Herring »