Action News is everywhere (even YouTube)
Pittsburgh: YouTube and Hearst-Argyle Television, parent company of WTAE-TV (4), have struck a deal in which five stations nationwide will supply content directly to the site, reports the Post-Gazette.
Local clips from 'TAE and other stations will be posted at special YouTube pages for each station (Channel 4's site is here) and advertising money generated from spots in the clips will be shared between YouTube and Hearst. Broadcasting & Cable reports that WCVB-TV Boston, WBAL-TV Baltimore and KCRA-TV Sacramento, Calif., are also part of the YouTube arrangement, and eventually all of Hearst's more than two dozen TV stations will be included.
In a press release, Terry Mackin, executive vice president of Hearst-Argyle Television, says the "innovative deal" fits perfectly within the company's "overall digital strategy of distributing our content on all three screens -- the TV, the PC and the mobile phone."
The company says that its Hearst-Argyle YouTube Channels will be populated with "news, weather, and entertainment videos as well as with original, local television programming" and may also support online video coverage of "high school football, basketball and local amateur entertainment."
WTAE's YouTube page already has news and sports coverage, but we particularly liked the vintage promos and bloopers they've posted as well. (Man, we miss Paul Long!)