Hollywood is warming up to the Internet's top video site. YouTube will announce an ad-revenue sharing deal with MGM - home of James Bond, the Pink Panther and Rocky - that will let the site show full-length movies for the first time from a major Hollywood studio.Jordan Hoffner, YouTube's head of content partnerships, called the agreement a "watershed moment' for the company: "We are really happy about MGM. They have an incredible library."
It's easy to understand why YouTube is excited. Founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen want the site to be more than just a destination for clips of skateboarding dogs, experiments involving Mentos and Diet Coke and the occasional Simpson episode that needs to be taken down immediately because of copyright infringement.
After all, there are only so many ads YouTube can put into a short clip like "Tiger vs. Bear." A feature-length film like "Rocky IV" has room from many more marketing messages.
The site is already showing full-length independent movies like "Harold Buttelman, Daredevil Stuntman." Now YouTube can boast that it has the kind of big budget movies that people can watch on Hulu.com., News Corp partnership with NBC Universal.
