Google and MTV team up for ad-supported video

Ad-supported video continues to gain momentum online. Google has teamed up with Viacom to provide video clips to websites that are part of Google’s AdSense Network. Viacom is the parent company to MTV, VH1, CBS and a number of other premium networks. The deal will be positioned as a revenue generator for Google, Viacom, and AdSense partners. All three will split revenues derived from the tie-in of advertising and content.

It will work like this: publishers (bloggers, big media, etc.) can elect to embed shows such as MTV’s “Laguna Beach” or Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob Squarepants” on their own web pages in a manner similar to how YouTube supports embedded video (for an example of how this works with YouTube, see this post on Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam). The clips themselves will contain advertising sold not by Google, but by the networks’ own ad sales teams. Those networks will share a portion of this revenue with Google, which will in turn share a portion of that revenue with the publishers themselves.

Full article: Ars Technica