YouTube, the video social-networking website owned by Google, is building a vast network of content providers, a company spokesperson said.
YouTube has concluded “more than 1 000 partnerships” with content providers both big and small, YouTube spokesperson David Song said late on Friday, confirming a New York Times report.
He declined to comment further on the company’s strategy of constructing a huge authorised library.
YouTube has run into legal disputes with companies such as Viacom, parent of MTV and Paramount Pictures. YouTube was forced to remove more than 100 000 unauthorised clips of Viacom television programmes in February after a promised copyright-protection system was not installed on the popular website.
On Friday, the BBC announced it had agreed a deal with YouTube, joining the likes of United States broadcasters NBC, CBS and Fox.
The BBC said it hoped to reach YouTube’s monthly audience of more than 70-million viewers and generate wider interest in its programmes, its own website and eventually related content on its proposed BBC iPlayer commercial download service.
The British broadcaster will put on YouTube video clips from its programmes and set up three “networks”, two devoted to entertainment and one featuring news.
Other new deals YouTube announced this week include an agreement with the National Basketball Association. That deal includes the creation of a new area on the website, the NBA Channel, where fans can access original NBA content and submit their own basketball video clips as well as rate those of other people in a programme called “Post Up the NBA”.
Google bought YouTube in November in a $1,65-billion stock deal. — AFP