WWE partners with YouTube to show full-length programs

kermit the frog

Kermit isn't watching "Two Girls, One Cup," he's watching ECW!

(PROGRAMMING NOTE: Don’t miss out on our three-part King of the Ring retrospective audio series! We’ll re-post it in a little bit to bump it up to the top, but since we have the chance to scoop other sites with some real news, we had to post this now.)

According to Advertising Age, WWE has agreed to provide four of its TV shows (one of which doesn’t actually exist anymore) in their entirety to YouTube. Good, my old-ass browser at work won’t play stuff on Hulu. The article states that WWE “will make a handful of its popular pro wrestling shows (“Friday Night SmackDown,” “WWE NXT,” “WWE Superstars” and “ECW”) available for streaming to U.S. users.” WWE will also sprinkle YouTube with more clips from old Monday Night Raws and, if my finger-crossing works, Coliseum Home Videos. Kamala bowling~!

“Wrestling is enormously popular on YouTube,” said Chris Dale, a spokesman for [YouTube]. “A large demographic of our community loves to watch these videos, and both [YouTube and WWE] saw the opportunity to provide that community with content that would really resonate with them.”

Oh, I was joking a second ago; I don’t watch any wrestling videos on YouTube during work at all, so this is in no way a huge deal to me. This does kind of beg the question as to whether or not WWE will sound the alarm even louder anytime a YouTube user posts copyrighted material, but,

Mr. Dale said protecting and controlling content is something any content producer can do with YouTube’s Content ID system, even without a premium partnership.”Regardless of whether the WWE was putting full-length episodes on its channel, it would always have the option to use Content ID to block, monetize or track the engagement of its content,” he said.

Good, maybe they won’t take down the “Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior” DVD that gets me through my day. Anyway, now I can watch Smackdown guilt-free and fast-forward heavy. And not at work, I swear. -Eric

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