Kate Bulkley, Media Analyst.

Media Money: Is Michael Grade right to stamp his feet about Google and YouTube?

By Kate Bulkley

Broadcast News

For Broadcast September 17, 2008

ITV executive chairman Michael Grade described YouTube and Google as "parasites" because they don't create quality content, they steal advertisers, aren't regulated - and generally spoil his day.

"Google and YouTube are just parasites," Grade told an IBC audience in a taped interview. "The day they start spending £1bn a year on content is the day I'll start worrying."

But of course Grade is, and should be, worried already. Google has said time and again that it is not a content producer, that its ambition is to index the world's content, working with creators like ITV. Well, Google may not look like a traditional media company, but on the web the very exercise of organising content and ranking it creates a content-consumption model. Google offers the chance to add feedback ("add a comment…") to the content it -carries, thereby creating new content, driving more traffic and attracting more advertisers.

YouTube is already the biggest online video service and Google also owns Blogger, one of the most popular blogging services, and Knol, a sort of Wikipedia-like knowledge-sharing site. Google is digitising millions of books it will make available through its search service and it already publishes financial information on Google Finance.

Google is competing for talent, advertisers and users with other content sites and creators - doesn't that sound like a media company? Google may not have sprung from traditional media, but traditional media is facing the challenge it brings. Rather than complaining, ITV should be concerned with out-thinking Google on its own turf. The challenge for Grade and his team is to come up with a few ways of spoiling Google's day.

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