Viacom Demands YouTube Pull 400,000 Ex-TV Viewers From Its Site

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Onion.com has a parody making fun of Viacom's pull out from YouTube. This is what they say:

In a cease-and-desist letter sent to Google's attorneys last week, media conglomerate Viacom demanded that YouTube immediately pull 400,000 ex-TV viewers from its industry-leading video-sharing site. "These viewers clearly belong to Viacom and its related entertainment subsidiaries," stated the letter, which called the co-opted viewership "the result of an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars by our company." "Should YouTube fail to adequately address this blatant infringement, Viacom will not hesitate to assert its ownership rights to its intellectual property."The letter threatened further legal action if all the 400,000 viewers in question are not removed from their desks and returned to their couches by the end of the week.

Alex from Google Operating System blog, says the message is simple, the media cannot force the audience just to watch their shows in only one media. In this case the TV. Viacom pulled out from the YouTube but then joined with Joost. Only time will tell how it will be successful with this partnership. Clearly with this YouTube pullout, they sure lost a lot of audience and global reach. Alex says, that Viacom cannot tell the audience what to watch and where to watch whether in TV or Computers. Viacom should have been more flexible. They could have embedded ads in their videos and posted in YouTube. Many viewers will watch and if they like the show, they will buy more shows from Viacom.

It was like free advertising for them which they lost with this pullout.