YouTube confirms NBC channel takedown
NewTeeVee confirms Valleywag's report from the weekend that NBC has pulled its YouTube channel. The reason, as we suggested, is the incipient launch of Hulu, NBC's unfortunately named joint venture with News Corp. A YouTube flack, almost a day after we posted our story, emailed this tired statement that she's graciously allowing us to attribute to spokesman Ricardo Reyes, even though we doubt he had anything to do with this limp piece of prose:
NBC informed us on Friday that they were taking down their branded channel and clips. Our relationship with NBC was a YouTube success story, so we hope NBC decides to post more original content and stay engaged with our users.
Two key words there: "was" and "hope." NBC wants to stay engaged with YouTube's users — just not on YouTube.