• Los Angeles Times, Monday, January 8, 2007 11 AM

David Eun, the former NBC and Time Warner executive, has made the move to Google, as the search giant's new ambassador to the television, movie publishing and local media industries. Eun takes the defensive in his first interview about his post, saying that acquisitions like YouTube don't mean that Google is trying to squash big media. "We never force you to work with us," he quips.

Google may not, but what about $1.65 billion YouTube? Are media companies whose content is freely distributed across the Web being held hostage? Google may not be out to create content, but it looks like it wants to force those who do to use its delivery services.

Eun has been in charge of getting that ball rolling. His team struck the MTV deal last year that would let AdSense publishers display MTV and other Viacom content on their sites in exchange for a cut of ad revenue. He also got CBS and Universal Music Group to allow their content to be distributed on YouTube for another slice of ad revenue. "Our whole business model is structured around partnering," Eun says, and he's right: Google shelled out $780 million Google to its partners last quarter.

That said, big media doesn't want to have to go through Google to profit from their content, which is why the big networks (minus Fox) are hard at work developing a YouTube of their own--specifically for use of their content. How this is delivered will be key.

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