Greedy (& Blind) Bastards

I have no business degree and I have never run a business, but sometimes business decisions are so dumb and shortsighted that it makes me believe that a business degree is about as valuable as a bag of liquid shit.

Comedy Central has decided to force YouTube to remove all content from The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and South Park from its site.

They just don't get it. It seems so 1980's for media companies to try and control 100% of their content 100% of the time. It reeks of stubbornness and a refusal to deal with new technology in a creative thoughtful way.

I mean, imagine how many viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report became viewers based on watching YouTube clips that they first saw posted on blogs or friends' MySpace pages? I don't have raw data, but common freaking sense tells me it's not unsubstantial. It's absolutely free advertising and a huge opportunity, yet Comedy Central chooses to see it as a threat.

Here's my personal evidence of how YouTube can lure in more viewers for a show. I stopped watching Saturday Night Live a long time ago. It just became unbearably lame. But then I saw that "Lazy Sunday" sketch (you know, the Chronic- What? cles of Narnia) on YouTube, and thought, "Hmmm, maybe the show has gotten better." So I tuned in for a few weeks. Unfortunately, I realized the show still sucked, but YouTube got me to at least reconsider.

If YouTube as a business opportunity can't convince Comedy Central to alter their plans, maybe patriotism will. My wonderful niece, the best person in the world, is stationed in Iraq. Iraq is obviously not the most happy place in the world. But soldiers do occasionally have internet access, and maybe watching a YouTube clip here or there for shits and giggles and a reminder of "normal" life makes it a little bit more bearable.

Anyways, using YouTube to your advantage just seems incredibly obvious to me. But as with most things, "the suits at corporate" have managed to fuck it up.

Comedy Central, you're on notice.