*Viacom wants off of YouTube

Hmmm, this could get interesting. The parent company of MTV and Comedy Central is demanding that all its stuff be removed from the Google-owned video site. For months now, the two sides had tried to reach a financial agreement on Viacom being compensated for its 100,000 some-odd video clips that wind up on YouTube, but the talks broke down. Viacom and the other media companies obviously like the exposure, but they don't especially like the idea of Google cashing in on all this free stuff. Besides, if YouTube does it, everybody else will. The FT reports that Viacom execs were frustrated that YouTube had failed to put in place a monitoring system that had been promised at the beginning of the year. YouTube has licensing deals with CBS and NBC, but it's squabbling with Fox because some YouTuber uploaded pirated copies of "24" and "The Simpsons." "Our hope is that YouTube and Google will support a fair and authorized distribution model that allows consumers to continue to enjoy our very popular content now and in the future," Viacom said in a statement. FT WSJ

*Cornering the market: Compete.com notes that a whopping 51 percent of the video site market is held by YouTube and Google, which is why it's probably in Viacom's best interest to reach some sort of accord. Some other highlights on video sites:

-58 million people viewed at least one video online in December ‘06
-14 out of the Top 20 video sites received over 1 million unique visitors
-The top 4 sites received over 10 million video related visits
-The top five sites account for 80% of the online video market