Viacom needs a hug…

Poor Viacom…  the rich get richer.  The rich and the powerful get greedy.  Viacom is a media giant that touches just about everything we enjoy in entertainment.  The company has enough money to pull America out of debt and put us into the black.  They have enough money to start their own  country.  They have so much money they don’t call it money any more, they call it dividends  and their stockholders are worth billions of dollars.  So why are they complaining?

Google purchases YouTube and increases their share of virtual usage many times over.  Now Viacom says what users are doing is illegal and they are suing for a billion dollars.  Intimidation?  You bet!  Greedy?  Certainly so!  What can a new money venture (Google) do against the old money (Viacom) mega-conglomerate?  How about a virtual hug?  I mean… like the ’79 song by Olivia Newton-John goes…” would a little more love make it right?”  It can’t be because they need the money…

In my mind, YouTube may be exposing people (young people) to outlets in entertainment and a genre that they may never consider.                                                                         

 Take for example a 1949 movie classic, “The Lady From Shanghai” with Rita Hayworth and Orson  Wells. My friend, damewigginsoflee.wordpress.com/  has this posted on her site and I might never have considered it unless I had seen it there.  Now after a little research, I am intrigued and want to go further with it… actually see it, in other words.  I probably would have never thought of it if not for that post on YouTube.   YouTube inadvertently advertises for Viacom, but garnishes no revenue from it.  Now when did free advertisement become a bad thing?

So my point is, YouTube (rather than infringing on the making of the almighty dollar) may actually be generating income towards Viacom!  I know a short little clip can’t be diverting too much money from their coffers and may be piquing interest in future purchases!  Why would they be against that?

And why rock the boat, Viacom?  Don’t you have enough of the world’s attention?  Let’s see here… Comedy Central,  BET, CMT, MTV ( 1& 2 ) Nick @ Night, SPIKE,  TV LAND, VH1, Paramount Pictures & Dreamworks… the list goes on.  Music, television, movies… Viacom has it’s controlling hand in much of what we watch and listen to, except on the Internet.

Perhaps we (the Internet generation, or IG’rs) should boycott,  It might be a difficult thing for some people to do but stop and think for a minute.  Imagine Viacom suffering one week of no revenue, I’ll bet they’d feel that right in the old pocket book.  And we might be better off reading a book for that week, rather than watching television.  We could go to a park, have a picnic and skip the movie that Saturday afternoon.  Perhaps toss a frisbee around or muster up that ancient ritual called conversation around the dinner table.  Maybe have friends over for charades or some board game that is collecting dust somewhere.  Bring out those old records, CD’s or itunes and jam, but don’t buy anything new for that week.  And tell your radio stations, movie theatres, television broadcasters and those who buy advertisement all over the ancient medium that Viacom controls that we aren’t going to support them.

Or maybe Viacom just needs a hug, after all…

We are the consumer, we  have the final say… (and scroll down)

peace.