sMoRTy71.com: NBC hates viral marketing

NBC hates viral marketing
This week, Saturday Night Live had one of its best skits since the "Lazy Sunday" digital short became one of the most popular videos on the web a few months ago. This time, it was the opening of show which featured Al Gore (the real Al Gore) addressing America from the Oval Office (he was in a parallel universe where he was elected in 2000). The skit was very funny and, by Sunday morning, dozens of copies were floating around on YouTube. By this morning, one of those videos had taken over the #1 spot on the Most-Viewed Videos list.

So what does NBC do? Do they ride the wave of viral marketing and try to change the overall perception that SNL hasn't been funny in years? Of course not. As with other SNL clips, they have them pulled. All of the Al Gore videos from Saturday are gone. So are all of the Chapelle clips from last week's Conan O'Brien appearance.

Instead of putting their videos where the eyeballs are, NBC is going to launch its own video service called DotComedy.com which will feature clips from SNL, Conan, The Office, etc. Why not take the same approach as MTV and use YouTube as free advertising for their programming?