Tube Touting

NBC didn't take long to start hawking YouTube.com, the broadcast-yourself video clip site with which it has just struck a cross-promotion agreement.

My problem is that the plug was in a NBC Nightly News story, albeit the last one in Wednesday nights broadcast. And it isn't even sweeps.

I'm not sure NBC's disclaimer that it was teaming with the site justified what appeared to be a promotion for it masquerading as a news story, albeit an interesting one. And I'm not sure it was a sufficient explanation since it did not point out that the deal was to give each other plugs, YouTube on the site, NBC on air.

Then again, I had not seen the Pinky the Cat video, which was almost worth overlooking the obvious plug. Almost.

And speaking of nightly news, NBC couldn't help showing a snippet of former CBS Newswoman Connie Chung's embarass-a-thon video from the set of her canceled MSNBC show.

That one has been seen by far more people than her average audience on the show.

And speaking of CBS news people, Katie Couric will narrate an upcoming American Masters profile of Walter Cronkite.  Now, all we need is a viral video of Cronkite to appear on YouTube and the circle will be complete.

But I digress.

By John Eggerton