AOL strikes ‘milestone’ YouTube deal
October 2, 2012
By Colin Mann
In a deal it suggests provides significant advertiser opportunity across nearly 20,000 premium videos, AOL has revealed that its entire original video content library is to be distributed and monetised on YouTube.
The deal brings some 20,000 high-quality videos from leading AOL brands, including The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Moviefone, to YouTube’s audience. According to comScore’s Video Metrix for August 2012, AOL and YouTube’s parent company, Google, are the two largest video content properties by number of video streams per month.
With a series of key acquisitions in the online video space in recent years, AOL has become one of the dominant forces in the industry. In April, the company launched The AOL On Network, a platform of AOL’s complete video offerings and a curated video hub for consumers that offers premium, short-form video across 14 content channels. As of August, The AOL On Network attracts approximately 61 million unique visitors per month and is number one in categories including Autos, Business, Style, Home, Health, Food, Travel and Tech.
“The AOL brand includes an incredible array of premium video content from some of the most highly-trafficked sites on the web, and this deal provides us with a way to expose that content to a vast new audience,” said Ran Harnevo, SVP of Video, AOL. “AOL and YouTube are two of the biggest names in online video today, which makes this deal an important milestone, not just for us, but for the industry as a whole.”
The deal brings AOL’s vast library of professionally produced video content, including original series Beyond the Battlefield and Little Women, Big Cars, to a new audience of video enthusiasts. The videos will be curated into 22 channels on YouTube.com, including TechCrunch, HuffPost Live, Moviefone, AOL On Style and AOL On Home. Ad sales will be handled by AOL’s sales team, opening up a new revenue stream for the company and delivering a significant amount of brand-safe inventory for advertisers.