Sarah Palin A Huge Hit On ABC, And Even Bigger On The Web

Surprise! SNL Sarah Palin Parody Getting More Views On NBC.com Than On YouTube

We know NBC U (GE) and YouTube (GOOG) are working hard to stop video piracy. Good news: it's working! Well, sort of. So far, NBC.com is getting more views for Tina Fey's parody of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live than pirated versions on YouTube, but just barely.

NBC.com: 2,304,539 views (according to NBC)
YouTube: 2,038,058 views (according to TubeMogul)

YouTube is busy taking down clips as they're posted. We clicked on several and got the familiar "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by NBC Universal." But they can't keep up, and have no claim over clips of news coverage of the skit.

The stats don't include any views on Hulu, where the SNL clip has become the most popular TV clip of the month. That could mean more people are watching on Hulu than on NBC, but Hulu doesn't report metrics so hard to say. But it does mean NBC is making ad revenue for at least 50% of those viewing this video clip in the Web, which in itself seems like an achievement.

Sarah Palin A Huge Hit On ABC, And Even Bigger On The Web

Last week ABC got the interview of the month, and it has been making the most of it. It has milked Charlie Gibson's grilling of Sarah Palin across five shows over two nights: "Nightline," "Good Morning America", "20/20" and two episodes of "World News." By our unofficial count, ABC has shown parts of the chat to some 35 million people.

Last week, we noted that more people watched the interview on YouTube than ABCNews.com. This week, a new question: Did more people watch Gibson and Palin on the Web than they did on ABC's TV broadcasts?

The answer is a definitive maybe. If the Web hasn't won already, it probably will soon.

ABC is furiously taking down pirated clips of the Palin inteview from YouTube as fast as they go up. Still excerpts of the interview have soaked up 35.6 million views on YouTube since last week, according to Tubemogul, which noted that dozens of illegal clips are going up and coming down each hour.