Earlier this week, the traffic experts at Hitwise said that despite the pulling of Viacom content from YouTube, the Google video site's traffic has grown 14% since then. Not to be outdone, Viacom
Thursday unveiled impressive Web growth of its own, posting year-over-year gains of 90% on its Comedy Central site, 50% on its MTV site, and 30% on its Nickelodeon site.
The numbers
come from Viacom's fourth-quarter earnings, though the gains don't reflect the company's move to add free video-sharing to its individual Web sites. Still, Viacom President Philippe Dauman said
video-streaming traffic had increased "dramatically" on its Web sites.
It's widely believed that Viacom's decision to abandon YouTube led to the more aggressive stance by big media
companies toward the Google site. News Corp., NBC Universal and CBS Corp. are all working on individual initiatives that could compromise YouTube's power. While much of YouTube's content comes from
individuals, it's unclear whether user-generated content can attract the kind of audience necessary to attract big ad dollars. Thus far, it seems professionally produced content has a greater chance.
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