The makers of popular Aussie sop opera Neighbours said the series would be made available on a social networking website, although would not say which one.
“We will soon announce the first local partnership that will see Neighbours offered, on an official and authorized basis, via one of the world's leading social networks,” said FremantleMedia’s vice president of licensing Ben Liebmann.
It appears they were, well, basically driven to this as folks kept uploading episodes to Youtube like mad. An episode of Home and Away was watched more than 4,700 times in the first 13 hours it had been on Youtube. An episode of Neighbours was viewed almost 1,200 times within 12 hours of being posted on Youtube.
Uploaders came form all over, with most reported as British, but also others list their locations as Australia, Lithuania and Norway.
“YouTube is YouTube – it’s democracy in action,” network spokesman Simon Francis said.
This blogger rather likes the ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ mentality of the company.
With so many companies fighting the inevitable with Youtube, sending out maniacal copyright infringement notices and stalking Youtube like fiends to get their content taken down…it is great to see a TV producer embrace the online medium.
