Disney and YouTube Make a Video Deal

Disney Interactive Media and YouTube, a division of Google, will spend a combined $10 million to $15 million on original video series; those shorts will be produced by Disney and distributed on a co-branded channel on Disney.com and YouTube. The channel will also include amateur video culled from the torrent uploaded to YouTube daily.

Disney, currently working on yet another overhaul of its Web site, is conceding that its own brand is not a powerful enough draw among children looking for video online; YouTube is viewed as being cooler.
So in a reversal of a go-it-alone Web strategy, Disney will go fishing for youngsters on YouTube in addition to making YouTube a prominent part of its own site.

Disney Interactive has been losing money over $300 million in the last four quarters. Disney.com’s traffic has also been dropping at an alarming rate. Unique visitors totaled 12.7 million in September, down from 17.9 million in June.