The NBC and News Corp. joint venture, which has been dubbed the YouTube Killer, has received $100 million in funding from Rhode Island-based investment firm Providence Equity Partners.
The YouTube killer has also gotten a reported valuation of $1 billion, which is nearly the amount that YouTube was acquired for late last year. That's big for a product that hasn't been launched yet, but not surprising, considering the companies that are behind the project. Both of these media giants have been supportive of other ventures, including Joost, providing content to other Internet television services that take better care to protect copyrighted video clips.
NBC is even supporting Robert Tur's case against YouTube itself. Fighting the video-sharing site on so many fronts may be successful to a large extent--even if YouTube isn't taken down, there's plenty of networks and media-sharing sites to go 'round. With premium content offered straight from the source, these media giants already have their foot in the door for sharing content online and on mobile phones.