Naturally it doth please me that David Wolf has declaimed his faith in Internet video sites in China, and that he chose for a section subtitle, “We have seen the future, and it is Youku.” David is blogging from CASBAA in Kowloon this week, and he’s making the kind of predictions that online ad folks, particularly those with ties to Internet video players like myself, hope will come to transpire:

Here is my scenario: either this year, next year, or in 2010 the results of the CCTV advertising auction are bad - so bad that they cannot be hidden. We’re talking like a 10-15% decline, or maybe worse. Meantime, Youku, Tudou, et al are starting to rake it in. They’ve concluded content licensing deals, they’ve fixed (or kind of fixed) the measurement issues, and there are upwards of 300 million users online.

 

At that point, it is not going to take long for CCTV and its fellow broadcasters throughout China to add things up. They will turn to the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television and to the Publicity (propaganda) Committee of the Party, making the case that these private online companies are not only hurting their business, but, worse, doing damage to the ability of broadcasters to serve their propaganda/social administration function for the state.

 

At that point, the government’s options become fairly clear: restrict the online video sites, let the broadcasters run whatever content they want, or force some kind of accommodation between the two sides (i.e., compel each of the sites to take on a state broadcaster as a part or majority shareholder.)

Let’s hope he’s right. By the way, SARFT has been shuttering more minor video players. Read Steve Schwankert’s piece on that here.