Web video site Joost cuts service, jobs, CEO goes

By Yinka Adegoke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Joost, an early pioneer in bringing popular TV shows and movies to the Web, is dropping its consumer service, cutting jobs and losing its high-profile chief executive as it struggles to find revenue to survive.

The company said on Tuesday it is changing strategy to serve as a white label video platform for media companies such as cable and satellite providers, as well as broadcasters. This moves it away from being primarily a consumer website.

"In these tough economic times, it's been increasingly challenging to operate as an independent, ad-supported online video platform," said outgoing Chief Executive Mike Volpi, who will remain involved with Joost as chairman.

The company has programing deals with CBS Corp, Viacom Inc and Warner Bros among others.

Joost launched with much fanfare in 2007 as the latest venture of Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom. Before Skype, the Swedish entrepreneurs founded KaZaa, a file- sharing service popular with music and entertainment fans for sharing songs and video clips. Volpi, a former rising star within Cisco Systems Inc joined Joost soon after.

But rather than become the leading website for TV shows and movies, Joost lost out to Hulu.com, a joint venture of News Corp, NBC Universal and Walt Disney Co, which launched around the same time.

Hulu's viewership has grown rapidly in the last year and is now the second most-watched video site in the United States after Google Inc's YouTube. Unlike Joost and YouTube, Hulu has received broad support from advertisers, many of whom have cross-platform ad deals with the broadcast parents.