Fremantle, ITV Sign Global Britain’s Got Talent Deal; Still No Official UK Vids

imageNow the brief Boyle-mania craze is dying down, ITV (LSE: ITV) can reflect on how its own online sensation was the one that got away in terms of online ad revenue. FremantleMedia, the company which licenses ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent abroad, has finally signed a deal with Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and ITV to create an official YouTube channel for the show outside the UK, creating the first official videos of unlikely soprano Susan Boyle’s performance.

But there will be no overlay ads on the YouTube channel for the time being — a company spokeswoman told me: “What we want in the first instance is to have a place where people can go (to watch the videos).” The company is instead “investigating the best routes to monetise the channel in conjunction with relevant partners” both in the UK and outside it. ITV will receive a share of any ad revenue that is created from overseas viewings but that’s only after more than 100 million unofficial video views and estimates of up to £1.5 million in lost revenue.

And the YouTube deal is for overseas Boyle fans only — the UK YouTube site still has no official ITV content, even as the unofficial BritainSoTalented channel inches towards the 50,000,000 views mark for its copied version of Boyle’s rendition of I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserable. Meanwhile, ITV is making up for lost time (and money) by plastering sponsored ads around a video interview with Boyle video on ITV.com and showing 20-second pre-roll ads.

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