Yahoo is planning to take on Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube online video dominance, and this summer will announce a service that offers channel pages and video hosting. Its value proposition? Giving creators a bigger cut of ad revenues, and offering the ability to distribute their videos across Yahoo's online properties.
Google currently takes 45 percent of ad revenues generated from views and clicks via YouTube creators' uploaded content, a chunk that leaves those creators, and multichannel networks they've partnered with, squabbling over the remaining percentage.
In response to this sore spot among creators, Yahoo says it will split revenues more favorably. It's also offering the option of a fixed ad rate that is reportedly 50 to 100 percent higher than YouTube's average net ad rate, according to Ad Age. Yahoo will sell pre-roll ads that run before the uploaded videos.
Creators are also not bound by exclusivity requirements, as they are at some MCNs and, in certain cases, at indie video site Vimeo. They can upload their video on both Yahoo's planned service and on YouTube.
It's not all roses, though. YouTube reportedly planned to announce the new service during its upfront presentation to advertisers in April, but contract negotiations with creators tapped to inaugurate the service stalled due to questions around content ownership.
The user-generated content service is another piece of the odd online video puzzle Yahoo is assembling. It's continuing to acquire online video properties--most recently, a rumor cropped up that it would purchase RayV, adding it to over three dozen small acquisitions the company has made since 2012. It's still negotiating with News Distribution Network to add the white-label news service to its portfolio, bulking up its online news strategy.
Yahoo has a stake in the original content game, with two new original series planned for this year, and it's trying to grab a piece of YouTube's huge music video market, reworking a deal with Vevo to bring live concert events and original music programming to Yahoo Screen.
For more:
- Ad Age has this story
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