MUMBAI: Time Warner Inc. and YouTube have signed an online video distribution agreement that will give consumers access to an extensive variety of high-quality, short-form content owned by Time Warner, including clips from movies, television shows and news programming. The agreement will allow Time Warner’s Warner Bros. Entertainment and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. to program videos on YouTube using a Time Warner embeddable player.
YouTube will host the content made available from a wide range of Time Warner-owned television shows and movies. Consumers will have easier access to a wide selection of existing and future clips, ranging from CNN news coverage to Cartoon Network and Adult Swim animated shows to TNT’s hit dramas to Warner Bros. Television productions like Gossip Girl and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Another Time Warner property, HBO, has been programming a branded channel on YouTube since early last year with promotional content from shows including True Blood, Hung and Entourage.
In addition, this deal gives Time Warner the ability to create separate channels for its key participating brands as well as to control and sell the ad time on YouTube. Warner Bros. Entertainment and Turner Broadcasting will work with YouTube to offer their advertising and agency partners unique packages of targeted advertising, supplemental marketing and branded channels.
Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes said, "Our agreement with YouTube helps us expand the amount of our promotional content, animation and news that we already make available online. Working with YouTube, we expect to improve our ability to monetize this short-form content through new and creative advertising initiatives."
"This partnership with Time Warner will provide our community with some of the most popular video content produced. We hope to build on this deal and look forward to a long and productive relationship," said YouTube co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley.
Under the agreement, videos from Time Warner properties will appear on YouTube and across Google’s product suite. Clips will include advertising, with time sold by Warner Bros. Entertainment and Turner Broadcasting System. Time Warner’s properties will share ad revenue with YouTube. The flexibility of this ad sales model differentiates YouTube from its competitors in the industry and was a key factor in the agreement with Time Warner. YouTube also will feature Time Warner content in marketing and promotional campaigns, including display ads.
