YouTube

Here’s a wrapup of some of those slips and gaffes that almost immediately gain wide exposure through YouTube.

YouTube’s $100 million investment in new premium “channels”? Consider it a down payment. YouTube content chief Robert Kyncl says it’s only the beginning of Google’s plan to back original content and the center of a long-term strategy to build the next generation of entertainment brands and an ecosystem that allows them to become profitable businesses.

The broadcaster is teaming up with the Google-owned online video service to provide its video player and livestreaming infrastructure for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The online video giant is aiming to create 25 hours of programming per day with the help of some of the top names in traditional TV, in a belief that it is laying groundwork for the future.

Google said Sunday it began releasing an update to the YouTube channel on Google TV, making it faster and easier to find content. The update is available through an app in Android Market.

There are many exciting things happening in the online video industry, but to my mind, none is more noteworthy than the radical transformation of YouTube. YouTube is shedding its scruffy adolescence and seeking to redefine what entertainment means in the online video era.

Machinima has the fourth-highest number of subscribers on the video website and is reaching beyond its roots into live-action programming. It’s catching the attention of advertisers and Wall Street.

NEW YORK (AP) — YouTube is launching a film festival that will play out online and ultimately send 10 finalists to the Venice Film Festival. The Google Inc.-owned video site […]

The Ion network is moving further into the entertainment news business as part of YouTube’s effort to establish a string of channels on its site. Ion and partner PMC are expanding their ENTV (Entertainment News Television) brand with a network that will include a daily appearance by former Us Editor in Chief Bonnie Fuller and some longer-form programming.

From humble beginnings of shaky, user-generated videos to its current efforts to deliver professionally created content, YouTube and its head of content Robert Kyncl are poised to lead television’s next evolutionary step.

In the next decade, 75% of all channels will be born on the Internet. That’s the bold prediction of the day from Robert Kyncl, the head of global partnerships for YouTube. In a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Kyncl said the Web is poised to become the premium channel for entertainment distribution within the next decade.

The facelift, unveiled Thursday, is the latest step in YouTube’s attempt to make the Internet’s most popular video site as easy to navigate and as compelling to watch as cable TV. In the process, YouTube owner Google Inc. hopes to make money selling ads.

YouTube today confirmed it has inked a deal to offer initially a “handful” of Disney titles in the U.S. and Canada, with hundreds of titles to be added in the coming weeks.

YouTube has become a big business pulling in serious money — the site could generate as much as $1.6 billion this year — and it’s now adding professionally produced content channels. But are they really necessary? Peter Kafka: “The channel strategy is a big focus for YouTube, but it doesn’t mean the site is abandoning what’s already working.”

The Google Inc.-owned video site said Friday that it’s launching more than 100 new video channels. The partners include an array of Hollywood production companies, celebrities and new media groups that will produce mainly niche-oriented videos.

The company’s lawyer tells a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan that a lower court judge was wrong to rule that Google Inc.’s popular video service was protected from copyright infringement claims.

NEW YORK (AP) — The YouTube channel for “Sesame Street” is back online after hackers forced its shutdown for a day by loading X-rated material. “Sesame Street” Executive Producer Carol-Lynn […]

YouTube is finalizing deals with well-known personalities and major media companies to produce content for a number of planned “channels” featuring professional-quality shows, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The Google-owned online video site had dedicated more than $100 million in cash to its effort to position itself for the rise of devices that will allow viewers to watch online content on their televisions. WSJ subscribers can read the full report here.

The video site and the Center for Investigative Reporting are considering launching a service dedicated to investigative journalism in response to the decline of in-depth reporting at traditional news outlets.

Ending a four-year legal battle with over 3,000 independent music publishers, Google Inc.’s online video site YouTube has agreed to pay licensing fees with the National Music Publishers Association.

Google Inc.-owned YouTube will announce today that it will present online coverage of Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, two of the summer’s largest festivals. YouTube has previously streamed festivals such as Tennessee’s Bonnaroo, San Francisco’s Outside Lands and, earlier this year, Southern California’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Hundreds of competitors are pitching YouTube this summer in an attempt to win a piece of $100 million in prize money and land control of one of 20 “channels” Google’s video site plans to feature in a new design, which will likely roll out in January.

YouTube is expanding opportunities for advertisers with what the company is calling First Watch. The name tells the story: an advertiser can buy a preroll spot on most people’s first view of a YouTube video each day.

YouTube announced in a blog post today that it’s adding 3,000 new movie titles for rent — the company says it will release more details later.

A Web start-up named Storify, which opens to the public today, aims to help journalists and others collect and filter the citizen journalism that appears on social media sites, YouTube and Flickr.

Longer-form digital entertainment content destinations continue to gain popularity among U.S. TV viewers. In March, Netflix remained the biggest digital platform when it comes to the most time spent per viewer, coming in at just under 10 hours a month. Netflix was up 6.6% in March over February, to 9 hours and 53 minutes — much of this coming from its longer movie content.

Google is working on a major overhaul of its YouTube video site to organize its content around premium “channels” and is spending as much as $100 million to commission original content.

n recent months YouTube has held talks with producers and agents in Hollywood, some known for producing Web video, and some not, about providing seed funding for content. They’d provide the money — $2 million to $5 million, according to those briefed — to those willing to commit to producing content channels with a certain number of episodes or frequency of episodes over time.

YouTube, the video site owned by Google, formally announced on Monday that it had acquired Next New Networks, a Web video production company, in its biggest effort yet to move beyond short, quirky home videos to professionally produced content.

Hewlett-Packard and YouTube team up for a Web show intended to illustrate HP’s new ePrint printer, which prints files and photographs by e-mail sent from a mobile device.