Rich Fiscus
28 Nov 2007 22:50
MTV Networks will be giving away every second of every episode of the hit show South Park online next year. The move follows a decision earlier this year to put an extensive archive of footage from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart online.
"'The Daily Show' was the first out of the gate and it's been a big success and it's a nice little model for us to follow," said Mika Salmi, MTV Networks president of global digital media. "There's no limit to which shows we can use at this stage."
"One does not diminish the other by any stretch of the imagination. That is kind of our hat trick," MTV Networks Chairman and Chief Executive Judy McGrath said at the Reuters Media Summit in New York on Wednesday. She was referring to the question of whether the online content would compete with television for the same audience.
That would apparently be news to Viacom executives, who decided to sue YouTube over the availability of clips from their television shows from the viral video giant. The suit, for more than $1 billion, claims that these clips on YouTube threaten the "economic underpinnings of one of the most important sectors of the United States economy."
Source: Reuters