Fake news fans can still get their fix on YouTube—for now. Shorter clips from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report will remain on the video-sharing site, a spokesperson for Viacom said Tuesday. The move hints that Google and Viacom are searching for a way to make money from the site’s popularity.

A formal agreement between YouTube’s parent company, Google, and Viacom, has not been announced. But Viacom’s interest in profiting from the popularity of its content on YouTube is evident in a statement issued by the company on Monday.

“We want our audiences to be able to access our programming on every platform and we're interested in having it live on all forms of distribution in ways that protect our talented artists, our loyal customers and our passionate audiences,” Viacom said in a statement sent to Red Herring by spokesperson Jeremy Zweig.

As of Tuesday, a search on YouTube for “The Daily Show” yielded 2,705 videos. A search for “Colbert” produced 2,328 clips. YouTube said it would not comment on the matter.

On Friday, Viacom requested that YouTube remove Comedy Central content, as well as programming from VHI, MTV, BET and Nickelodeon, from its site due to copyright violations.

Comedy Central has its own website, Motherload, where viewers can watch clips of shows with pre-roll commercials. Comedy Central also sells episodes of many of its top shows, including The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, for $1.99 a pop via Apple's iTunes Store.

Many analysts have speculated that without illegally-uploaded content, like the clips from Comedy Central, YouTube may not be able to hang on to its audience. “There is a big risk there for YouTube in terms of its current status as the unchallenged number one site for sharing this kind of video,” said Joe Laszlo, an analyst with Jupiter Research.

YouTube struck a content-sharing deal with broadcast network NBC this summer (see Now Playing: YouTube, NBC). More recently, CBS, Showtime, and CSTV partnered with YouTube to provide short form video clips from shows including CSI, Survivor, and CBS Evening News. YouTube will share any revenue from ads placed next to CBS content uploaded by YouTube users with CBS, and CBS will have the right to remove such content from the site.

More content-licensing deals like those inked with NBC and CBS are likely to emerge, too. Negotiating and deal brokering stepped into high gear following Google’s $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube in October (see GooTube Feeding Frenzy).

“I think we’ll see a lot of this kind of activity where companies may threaten to sue one day and end up happy partners the next,” said Mr. Laszlo. “All of the major media companies are still feeling their way.”

Contact the writer:AWeinstein@redherring.com

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