In this battle, my money is on the original content. As the LA Times reports, Viacom will put the entire history of the show up on the web for viewing, and is going to experiment with a variety of ways to show ads. Plus, it's pretty easy to figure out -- want to see a clip from Jon Stewart? Go to www.thedailyshow.com. Skip all the trouble w/ video search on the web, go right to the source.
In his column today, David Pogue wrote at length about the challenges facing the TV industry overall. He closes by saying:
In other words, free online episodes are a reasonable attempt by the TV networks to avoid being swamped by the Internet. But will it be enough to keep TV’s head above water? That chapter has yet to be written.
Right -- but the experimentation is encouraging. If I'm YouTube -- I'm nervous.