News Bytes: November 6

YouTube Plans To Launch Live-Streaming November 22
via Silicon Alley Insider

YouTube will launch live-streaming in the style of startups UStream, Justin.TV, Stickam and Mogulus at its November 22 "YouTube Live!" event, a company source who has seen mock ups of the user-interface tells us.

"Of course something could go wrong and they might not launch it," say our source, who nevertheless says YouTube employees talk of the new service's launch as a foregone conclusion.
A YouTube spokesperson told us: "We're working with a third party to live-stream our event called Live. We have no product to announce at this time."

Live streaming is very expensive and hard to monetize. A Google source told us in August that YouTube execs figure that if just 10% of YouTube's users adopted live streaming, bandwidth costs would go up 20% to 25%.

That's because live-streaming clips tend to last much longer than the short video clips typical of YouTube. They also require data to pass both ways.

It's also hard to make money off live-streaming. Advertisers don't want to put their brands against live content created by uncontrollable YouTube users.

One possibility that we feel Google shareholders should root for: YouTube will launch live streaming as a service for paying customers only.

MediaBytes:
via MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer » MediaBytes

Google has abandoned its proposed search ads deal with Yahoo. Google walked away after the Department of Justice told both parties it would sue them to block the agreement. Yahoo’s stock was up on the news, while board member Carl Icahn continues to push for a sale to Microsoft.
Sprint will bring NFL games to mobile devices. The mobile broadcast deal, valued around $500 million for five years, gives Sprint the right to phone-cast 8 exclusive NFL Network games a year. The big question is whether or not Sprint will be able to sell more than $500 million in phone plans.

Michael Crichton, author and creator of the hit television drama ER, passed away yesterday. Crichton, who was battling cancer, is best known for Jurassic Park. NBC CEO Jeff Zucker noted that Crichton “was a modern day Rennaissance man…who helped change the face of televised drama.

via NewTeeVee
Mobile Video Infrastructure Market to Grow; despite downturn, research firm In-Stat predicts the market will reach $291 million in 2012. (emailed release)

YouTube Working on Adding Full Length Studio Movies?
via paidContent.org

So says a report from News.com, and it seems a no brainer on the face of it: YouTube, owned by Google (NSDQ: GOOG), has tried to get full length movies and TV shows from major networks and studios for a while now, but has failed to make major headway due to queasiness on part of the conglomerates. The media/entertainment companies worry about putting their shows/movies in what has primarily been perceived to be a user-gen-heavy environment, and then putting all eggs in one video basket, so to speak.

According to the story, YouTube has been talking to the major film companies about launching an ad-supported, streaming movie service. A studio source I spoke to said nothing's final yet, or anywhere near it, but headway has been made. The video site has built a "Screening Room" recently, with the idea to showcase indie movies there. That could feasibly be expanded to include major studio content as well. Some sticking points include how many and what kinds of ads could be places in movies. If YouTube chooses to go the minimalist Hulu route, then they better have patience with scaling up enough on the ad deals side (not audience, which it arguably has) to monetize it effectively. Even Hulu has to start considering that seriously.