Viacom To Sign With Joost Over Google’s YouTube

Viacom Charts New Course Online at the Wall Street Journal reports that Viacom announced “broad licensing deal with Joost.” Joost is like YouTube but they specialize in commercial video. The deal allows Joost to include “hundreds of hours of programming from Viacom cable networks such as MTV, Comedy Central and Spike as well as movies made by the company’s Paramount studios” for their users.

Viacom’s Chief Executive, Philippe Dauman, said they are interesting in allowing web based access to their content “provided we can operate in a secure environment.” Joost will enable that, putting pressure on YouTube to secure deals with other major video content providers. There are some more details at Techcrunch.