The Chernin Group (led by former News Corp. COO Peter Chernin) and Comcast are reportedly ready to invest $30 million in Fullscreen -- a startup that helps video producers manage their presence on YouTube. Sources tell Peter Kafka that the deal hasn't closed yet, but should come together soon. Meanwhile, the would-be round follows what Kafka calls "Big/Old Media bets on YouTube startups," including Time Warner's investment in Maker Studios and Bertelsmann's investment in fashion network StyleHaul. Fullscreen represents semi-pro video makers on YouTube. Unlike "multi channel networks," however, it also has a software service it sells to content owners …

While the online video audience is still dwarfed by TV, it disproportionately pulls in younger viewers who have largely abandoned traditional TV in favor of digital and on-demand alternatives. In that vein, Randy Kilgore of Tremor video said he’s heard some broadcast networks won’t guarantee the 18-34 demo for advertisers anymore. If that’s true, and Tremor is able to guarantee that audience, then it’s got an edge for the much coveted slice of the audience. Carat’s John Wolff agreed online video represents a way to broaden reach, picking up viewers who you’re not going to get through TV.

In a panel discussion focusing on whether “it’s all video now” for media planners across TV, online and devices, executives suggested there are still clear differences across platforms. Randy Kilgore, Chief Revenue Officer, Tremor Video, said it’s all video to him, but there’s a “disconnect” with people who determine budgets, indicating TV still gets the lion’s share of ad dollars. John Wolff, VP, digital strategy at Carat said all video isn’t the same. The question 'how consumers are leveraging the medium and where are they receptive.’ Instead of getting caught up in GRPs and other “process metrics,” …

The most important channel for continuing growth of digital video will be mobile, declared Digitas' Jordan Bitterman at the MediaPost Video Insider Summit Friday. And a trend he'll be looking at closely is how the big content distributors like HBO and Netflix "revisit" the licensing deals they cut to bulk up their own mobile apps. Already, he said, "we're seeing a lot of video going there." Bitterman also quoted an e-Marketer projection that digital video advertising will grow to be a $9.1 billion business by 2017. The industry needs to do a lot of work in the standardization area in …

Digitas' Jordan Bitterman turned a little "Mary Meekerish" in the early part of his "Video In Crisis" presentation at the Video Insider Summit, showing an obligatory time spent vs. ad dollars spent chart of "digita" vs. TV. "Marketers are still spending 65% of their ad budgets on television vs. 34% in digital," he noted. The reason it is Mary Meekerish, he implied, is because of the data in the other part of the chart on consumer time spent with media, and the fact that digital (40%) and TV (42%) are nearly at parity. "There is a vacuum we need to …

Actually, it was kind of an appropriate transition from Steve Smith's old school video (you know, TV) that DIgitas' Jordan Bitterman's opening keynote at the Video Insider Summit got off to a shaky start -- I mean literally. When he kicked off his presentation the opening video player frame was all shaky, just like an old school TV set might have looked. "That's not good," he said, adding, "This is video in crisis." I think that's the theme of his presentation, so that's also appropriate. But the shaky video presentation start made me think that maybe, just maybe, we haven't …

Programming chair and emcee Steve Smith kicked off the Video Insider Summit at the Mohonk Mountain House in upstate New York by dispensing of his standard preamble: You know the numbers and metrics about the (fill in the blank) medium's growth. "I'm not going to cite them," he advised, explaining, "We all know how quickly online video is growing." Instead, Smith set the stage for online video by talking about another one, it's projenator televison. "It was the signature medium of the last century," he noted, adding that it still pervades and determines the culture of all the video media …