Media companies would be better off handing their online video activities to Google's YouTube video-sharing site than pursuing home-grown efforts such as Hulu.com and the US cable industry's TV Everywhere initiative, according to senior Google executives.
“At some point in time it becomes an economic choice by the content owners. It's a matter of core competences,” Nikesh Arora, Google's president of global sales operations and business development, told the Financial Times.
Mr Arora said media industry efforts to replicate cable television's business model online through TV Everywhere were “clever”. The initiative, which is undergoing trials, aims to offer a full channel line-up to proven cable subcribers.