Latin TV Comes to YouTube

Well, it's finally here. Google (GOOG) and the Authors Guild finally unveiled their second attempt at setting up a settlement to the class action stemming from Google's Book Search project to digitally archive all human knowledge. And wouldn't you know it? It's not very interesting. Under the new agreement, an independent "fiduciary" would be set up to oversee and license the sale of orphan works, or books that are still under copyright but whose owners can't be found. Critics of the deal have already told the Wall Street Journal that they don't like the new arrangement any better than the old one, and the Justice Department can't possibly be satisfied, since this deal doesn't remotely address most of their concerns. So we're back to Square One.

No, the much more interesting news is the announcement that YouTube has inked a new deal with Univision, the Spanish-language television network, to stream new shows in their entirety on the Web site. Sadly, the most popular offerings, the delightfully florid telenovelas, won't be part of the deal, as they are produced by an independent Mexican company, and the network didn't have the right to stream them. Nonetheless, this is a major development in the business of content on the web. As PC World writer Jared Newman notes, this is the first time an independent network has committed so much content to free, ad-supported distribution on YouTube; other studios dole out 30-year-old relics, if they work with YouTube at all. Meanwhile, three of the major TV studios (ABC, NBC, and Fox) insist on controlling the venue where their shows are streamed. They insist that people watch their shows on Hulu.

But Univision has a completely different model in mind. Not only will it offer all of its content for free on YouTube, it has the right to offer it on other Web sites as well. While Hulu and CBS are determined to limit the number of places where their content is displayed, YouTube and Univision are wedded to the idea of ubiquity. Since these are completely contradictory models of monetizing Web-based content (subscriptions vs. ads, limiting access vs. universal access), it will be interesting to see which works—assuming either one will.

Finally, the Wall Street Journal points out that this deal is something of a watershed moment for YouTube's Latin presence. The company's Spanish-speaking audience grew by a fairly remarkable 80 percent last year, and this should only draw more viewers in.