Stations Extend Reach Through YouTube

The NY Times has a front-page-of-the-Business-section story on YouTube getting more local through a program called News Near You. YouTube says it’s helping stations and other local media outlets get their local content to users in their market. The revenue impact is minimal thus far, but stations see it as a free way to extend the brand–and maybe position themselves for bigger profits down the road.

Reports Brian Stelter:

YouTube, which already boasts of being “the biggest news platform in the world,” has created a News Near You feature that senses a user’s location and serves up a list of relevant videos. In time, it could essentially engineer a local newscast on the fly. It is already distributing hometown video from dozens of sources, and it wants to add thousands more.

Around 200 news outlets have signed up with YouTube to post their content and split rev from the ads that run along with their programming.

Stations have dipped their toe in the YouTube waters for a few years now. Hearst announced the launch of five stations’ dedicated YouTube channels in June 2007 and LIN had a similar announcement in October of that year.