Corporate Synergy Infects Online Video

After Google bought YouTube last week, industry watchers and fans of the site speculated that corporate pressures might corrupt the populist 'Tube. Well, if newly purchased sites like Grouper and iFilm are any indication, pro-Google and anti-Yahoo! spots might start appearing on YouTube's "Featured Videos" section any day now.

Just two months into Sony Entertainment's swallowing of Grouper, the YouTube rival has conspicuously featured Sony products on some of the choicest real estate on its website. Sony's horror film The Grudge 2 has its own channel on the site's main navigation bar, just below "Most Viewed," "Most Downloaded," and "Groovies." Surprise, surprise, it is the only movie granted such a privilege.

But wait, what's that picture of Kirsten Dunst doing so prominently displayed on the top of Grouper's video section, one of only three videos to be presented on the home page larger than all of the others? Sony's upcoming weekend release Marie Antoinette, starring Dunst, opens this Friday, of course. And in the "Most Watched" section of the site, the same Marie Antoinette trailer appears, even though it's been watched only 1,902 times, far below highly viewed entries such as "Cashier Flashes Customers" (19,101) or "hot girls making out" (225,375).

Viacom unit MTV Networks now owns both iFilm and Atom Films, once rivals in the early days of the online videos wars. While Atom Films has yet to feature prominent Viacom material, is it any coincidence that one of the top videos featured on iFilm's homepage is an interview with Ryan Philippe about his experiences shooting Clint Eastwood's "stirring WWII film, which is out this weekend" Flags of our Fathers, a film that is owned and being distributed by none other than another Viacom property, Paramount Pictures? Or is it a surprise that iFilm's "Movie" channel features choice positions for other Paramount movies such as The Break-Up and Over the Hedge.

Welcome to corporate synergy, where no conglomerated website is safe.