Four major media companies, including News Corp.’s Fox, Viacom Inc., CBS Corp. and General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal, are in talks about creating a video Web site to compete with Google Inc.’s YouTube, according to people close to the situation.
The companies, owners of most of the major TV networks, envision a jointly owned site that would be the primary Web source for video content from their networks, allowing them to cash in on fast-growing Web video advertising. They also have discussed building a Web video player that could play video clips from across the Web. A deal to create a competitor remains far off, however.
Walt Disney Co., owner of ABC, isn’t participating in the talks, because it wants to rely on the strength of its own brands, according to a person close to the discussions. ABC and the networks participating in the talks already offer some of their programming on their own Web sites.
