• TechCrunch, Friday, February 9, 2007 11:05 AM

To be sure, it's been a week of bad omens for Google's YouTube. The Viacom defection has been the worst of it, but tough talk a few days later from new NBC chief Jeff Zucker indicates that YouTube's already tenuous relations with its partners (NBC is a YouTube partner) are growing thinner.

The blogosphere is now abuzz with the possible implications from these events. Zucker's condemnation of the video site was so similar to what Viacom said last week the two events almost seem orchestrated. YouTube, as indecisive as ever, is choosing not to implement a filtering system for copyrighted material, though it has the means. Media companies feel like they're being given the runaround.

A filtering system would gut YouTube's core content and won't happen without a judge getting involved. By the same token, the broadcast giants need YouTube because it still offers great publicity and has no real competitor.

Media execs say Google keeps making and then pulling offers because it can't keep its promises. For the networks, display revenue from video views is negligible: one-tenth of a cent per view. Compare that to 30 cents per viewer in TV.

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