News earlier this week that Fox Entertainment Group would be working with Brightcove to ramp up its syndication efforts adds to the drumbeat around this trend that was already pretty steady.

 

Six months ago in my December, 2006 e-newsletter, "7 Broadband Video Trends for 2007", I identified broadband video syndication as important going into 2007. Back then I noted that "Syndication is the handmaiden of the ad-supported broadband video business model. Successful online advertising requires scale and targeting. Syndication provides both." I think we're seeing that play out.

 

Whether the NBC-News Corp JV, CBS Interactive Audience Network, FEG deal, or countless others I've heard will be announced soon, they all point to same underlying fundamentals. Producing high-quality video is expensive. Content providers want to maximize their ROIs. So they want their content in as many places as possible to aggregate as large an audience as they can, so they can harness online advertising's potential. While none of this is a surprise by online standards, it is a departure from the traditional video models of tight control, limited distribution and exclusive deals.

 

It's very promising to see the how much progress is being made so quickly to evolve to Internet-centric distribution approaches. More evidence that the media industry's future will be quite different than its past.