Tudou and LeTV Partner Up, Launch Joint Venture

Video streaming websites Tudou and LeTV announced today that the companies have partnered to found a new joint-venture company. The new company, which is called Shanghai Tudou LeTV Movies and Television Limited (catchy, huh?) will be jointly owned, with LeTV owning a 51 percent stake by way of their 510,000 RMB investment (about $79,000) and Tudou a 49 percent stake via their 490,000 RMB investment (about $76,000).

According to LeTV’s announcement, the company will primarily be working on the acquisition and sale of domestic film and television rights and, presumably, feeding content to Tudou and LeTV. The joint venture may be a move on Tudou’s part to tap into LeTV’s library of and success in attaining domestic copyrighted shows. The race for viewers has led major video sites into expensive bidding wars over the hottest shows that have driven up the prices of licensed content.

Oddly, though, the companies have set up a web portal at tudou.letv.com that is a carbon copy of Tudou’s own front page, which emphasizes newsy content and only pushes licensed content below the fold. Visiting letv.tudou.com also seems to work, and also displays a carbon copy of the Tudou homepage, on which there is no mention of LeTV. And the LeTV homepage remains unchanged. If the purpose of the new company is primarily to work with domestic, licensed TV shows and films, it’s odd that news and paike videos are getting top billing on the the joint web platforms. But perhaps they just haven’t finished setting them up yet and they are displaying Tudou’s homepage as a temporary measure.

So what the heck is going on here? We have to admit we’re not entirely sure. Personally, my gut feeling is that this may be the first in a series of partnerships and acquisitions that will see the larger video sites swallowing up or at least working with some of the smaller ones to cut down on competition and boost their market share. But that’s pure speculation at this point. We’ve reached out to Tudou for some clarification on the purpose of the web platform as well as comments about their overall strategy, and will let you know if we hear back.

[Via Sina Tech]