YOUTUBE BIDS FOR BUSINESS FROM NETWORKS

Google-owned YouTube is expected to launch an effort to convince major content providers, including broadcast and cable networks, that they can deliver “TV-size audiences” to them, the London Financial Times reported today (Monday). According to the newspaper, YouTube has doubled the number of videos it streams a day to 2 billion from 1 billion just last October and is expected to grow exponentially with the advent of tablet-sized computers like Apple’s iPad. The newspaper said that YouTube will make a pitch “to the very companies that had once lined up to denounce or even sue the video-sharing site.” Viacom is pursuing a $1-billion lawsuit against YouTube. “Five years ago, the calls were lawyer to lawyer. Now they’re not,” Hunter Walk, YouTube’s director of product management, told the FT. He predicted that eventually the video website will pay “billions of dollars” to its professional content partners.