AOL pushes video library onto YouTube

AOL (NYSE: AOL) used New York Advertising Week 2012 to announce that it is putting its video library of almost 20,000 titles on YouTube.

"[O]ur entire original video content library will be distributed across 22 curated channels and monetized on YouTube," Ran Harnevo, AOL's senior vice president of video, wrote in a company blog. "Viewers will be able to enjoy nearly 20,000 videos from their favorite AOL brands like The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Moviefone; original series Beyond the Battlefield and Little Women, Big Cars; and vertical content on topics Style and Home."

AOL said its sales team will handle ad sales for the channels, which are expected to present a new revenue stream and deliver "a significant amount of brand-safe inventory for advertisers," Harnevo continued.

An AOL news release pointed to the company's "series of key acquisitions in the online video space in recent years," noting that in April AOL launched The AOL On Network as a platform for the company's complete video offerings and a "curated video hub for consumers that offers premium, short-form video across 14 content channels." By August, AOL said, the network had attracted about 61 million unique visitors per month and become "number one in categories including Autos, Business, Style, Home, Health, Food, Travel and Tech."

"The AOL brand includes an incredible array of premium video content from some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Web and this deal provides us with a way to expose that content to a vast new audience," Harnevo said in the news release. "AOL and YouTube are two of the biggest names in online video today, which makes this deal an important milestone, not just for us, but for the industry as a whole."

For more:
- Ran Harnevo wrote this blog
- AOL issued this news release

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