There's been a lot of buzz over the past month about the fact that Fox, Viacom, NBC Universal and perhaps CBS may (or may not) launch their own YouTube rival. Now it seems there's a bit more surety, and the venture could be announced as early as this week.
We don't have a name for the new service, but we do know that it would take on YouTube by supplying the media companies' own content, as well as accepting user generated clips. Unsurprisingly, one of the chief architects is News Corp President Peter Chernin - MySpace is no doubt feeling threatened by YouTube as it continues to hog the limelight. The other chief architect is David Zaslav, who oversaw NBC Universal’s cable networks and became CEO of Discovery Communications last month (ie. the Discovery Channel).
The participation of CBS, meanwhile, isn't such a sure bet, says the NYT story that brought more credibility to the rumors today. The CBS-YouTube deal has performed well for CBS, and they may even begin selling radio inventory to Google. In fact, the entire venture could take a long time to develop, or fall through entirely if the competing media companies can't find common ground.