Viacom can sue Google for billions and its big media cousins can follow, but Google will always have a one-up on them in terms of distribution. And that's where the big money in media has always been.
Offline, the big media companies often do their own distributing, on the Web, this is Google's domain. Where it doesn't control distribution, big media has traditionally used its buying power to
display content prominently. "The historical media play," as consultant John Hagel says, "is having privileged access to limited shelf space."
Online, shelf space is infinite, placing the
traditional economics of media under attack. At the very least, these rules have to be rewritten, and unfortunately for big media, it has zero leverage in Web distribution. All these companies really
have (News Corp. and MySpace excluded) is their Web properties, but as YouTube's dominance in the video audience shows, media silos don't sit well with Web consumers--they want to get it all from one
place.
That's why Google, a company that helps consumers find stuff, is eating big media's lunch. Feeling the competition, big media has turned its back on Google's proposal to help it find
audiences and sell ads. They don't want to give up that kind of control without securing privileged access. To be fair, thus far, Google has been unable to present a compelling ad package--as
audiences can be small compared to prime-time TV. Plus, YouTube's ad model is yet to be thoroughly ironed out. Still, its audiences (again, News Corp. excluded) are a much bigger than what big media
has been able to attract to its sites
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