When MTV President Judy McGrath gave her keynote address at the CTAM Summit, she made her admiration of YouTube quite clear. McGrath also gave some strong hints that she might like for MTV to acquire, or at least imitate, the video-sharing site.
“Video is our expertise. . . . We’re looking at acquisitions and builders,” McGrath stated, according to coverage from Advertising Age. And she had nothing but nice things to say about YouTube, even if it is a potential competitor.
The site has established a “new definition of social video,” McGrath asserted. And like any good media exec, she had the numbers to back up her contention. “If you look at a chart [of the growth of user-generated content] it’s like a hockey stick,” she said.
The MTV president wanted to make it clear that this isn’t a “me too” move. “We’ve never launched a service because we can but because there’s a demand we can brand,” McGrath said. “Users have a seemingly endless appetite” for digital content.
Abbey Klaassen captured yet another quote that established McGrath’s desire to be on the leading edge. “Traditional cable providers are on the front line of many of these new things, including wireless,” McGrath said. It looks like she has every intention of moving her company to the front line of online video content, as well.
It will be very interesting if MTV makes some sort of move towards acquiring YouTube. A Google search for “Google+Search” class=”bluelink”>buy youtube” yields speculative articles on possible Fox, Disney, and Google buyouts – and that’s just on the first page of results. You can bet a lot of people were listening closely to Ms. McGrath’s address.
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Doug is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest eBusiness news.
