Yahoo Deep-Sixes The 9

Yahoo has discontinued production of its viral video roundup show The 9. The show’s final episode aired on Monday. Neeraj Khemlani, Yahoo’s head of programming, downplayed the change when we talked to him late Wednesday, contending The 9 had seen surprising longevity. “Two years in Internet time is All in the Family.”

Speaking perhaps to the general futility of video clip shows, Khemlani added, “It’s a lot easier just to email somebody a link to a given video.”

Khemlani would not disclose The 9‘s audience size — a move that seems silly in this day and age. He would only say the show had “pretty sizeable” viewership that was “totally dependent on programming” — i.e., not a regular audience. The 9 had long been sponsored by Pepsi.

Khemlani explained the elimination of the show by saying it did not complement an existing Yahoo vertical. Other shows, such as Nissan Live Sets and Fantasy Football Live, have more natural tie-ins. We recently wrote about the company’s new web finance show Tech Ticker. A new entertainment show called Primetime in No Time is “performing like gangbusters,” he said.

Yahoo is also about to launch another original show called Good Morning Yahoo, said Khemlani, who described it at a news roundup of all the “morning watercooler stories.”

Khemlani said the discontinuation of The 9, which was hosted by Maria Sansone, would not involve layoffs, as most of the work on the show was outsourced. He said most of the rest of Yahoo’s original content is produced by in-house teams in Santa Monica, Sunnyvale, Nashville, and New York.

Yahoo’s struggles with the role of original content are nothing new (remember when Lloyd Braun worked there?). Hat tip to Andrew Baron.