China implemented a site-wide block of YouTube today, for reasons still unknown. The country has blocked portions of YouTube before as part of its censorship programs, but blocking the entire site is something new.

Wired’s Epicenter blog lists some recent events that could have triggered China’s censorship officials’ massive blockade, including footage of Chinese soldiers beating Tibetans, or videos released by the U.S. Navy of Chinese ships attempting to interfere with a sonar array cable being dragged behind the USNS Impeccable.

Regardless, Chinese citizens currently can’t watch videos on YouTube, and while parent company Google is working to restore access, it doesn’t know what its next steps will be.

The Chinese government exerts strict control over content and has denied the required licenses to different Chinese video-sharing sites in the past. During a recent visit to our offices, Youku CEO Victor Koo said that officials in charge of censoring content had been more permissive as of late.

Last year, all of YouTube went down after technical error occurred when Pakistan attempted to block access to a particular video clip to the site.

Newsiness was the name of the game in this week’s list of the most-Twittered TV shows, according to Trendrr. The Battlestar Galactica series finale enjoyed a nice bump after that opaque ending (probably with most fans tweeting: “What the frak? Angels?”). Elsewhere, President Obama’s historic appearance on The Tonight Show provided Jay Leno’s first appearance on our list. But the biggest of them all was March Madness (which technically isn’t a TV show, but we’ll roll with it), as millions of fans probably kept their friends updated on their office pools.

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Traffic to the March Madness On Demand player during the first four days of the tournament already surpassed the traffic of the entire tournament last year, CBS Sports announced today. Here are the stats from the press announcement:

NCAA March Madness on Demand traffic figures through Sunday, March 22

• 5.6 million unique visitors to the NCAA March Madness on Demand video player (2008 figure was 3.5 million – 60% growth)
• 6.5 million total hours of live streaming video and audio consumed – (2008 figure was 3.8 million – 71% growth)
• 2.5 million clicks of the “Boss Button” (2008 figure was 2.5 million for entire tournament)

Nearly half (2.7 million) of MMOD’s 5.6 million unique visitors came on the very first of the tournament when most people were at work and more games are played during the day. CBS has said before that 4.8 million users tuned into MMOD over the course of the 2008 tournament.

Though we’ve worried that Hulu’s success might make it a victim, by driving its content providers to limit their offerings and provoking cable companies to get in the game, the site keeps growing its wedge of the American audience.

If Hulu can keep moving up the charts, it may just capture enough hearts and minds to stay there for the long term. The company is now the No. 4 biggest video streamer in the U.S., according to comScore, and the No. 2 according to Nielsen. comScore reports the site grew its number of viewers 42 percent and its number of streams 33 percent in February, a shortened month that saw a drop for most video sites in the top 10.

Here’s Hulu’s account of its rise:

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CBS’s coverage of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is off to a strong start as the network announced today that more than 2.8 2.7 million unique visitors used the March Madness On Demand player during the first day of play yesterday.

That 2.8 2.7 million is up 56 percent over 2008’s 1.75 million opening day draw. Additionally, users spent 2.8 million total hours streaming audio and video (65 percent growth over last year). Having a big audience at the start of the tournament is important for CBS because online audiences are the inverse of television, tuning in online for early games that are shown during the workday, and then tapering off as there are fewer games.

CBS also reported that March Madness television ratings were up 9 percent for day one as well.

We asked how much of the the MMOD watchers were viewing in high-quality, and where most of the traffic was coming from (would love to know how many iPhone users tuned in, and how much traffic YouTube generated), but CBS didn’t have those details ready yet.

Affine Systems is a startup whose approach to video search isn’t just about the results, it’s also about what’s after that. The company wants you to find what you are looking for, but then bucket those results in a way that will lead you to discover and watch more videos.

There is no shortage of companies offering video search. Like EveryZing and Nexidia, Affine is a B2B play targeting premium content companies looking to provide search services and become a gateway to discovering more video.

Similar to VideoSurf, Affine uses facial and object recognition to find what you are looking for. When you search for George Clooney, you get a number of videos featuring the movie star, but then Affine goes one step further to break down and bucket other results based on what it thinks you might be interested in from that search. So Affine can recognize Clooney and Matt Lauer’s face and know that it’s an interview they did and point you to that. Or it can recognize a CNN logo on-screen for any news clips featuring Clooney on that news network.

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Both MTV Networks and ABC.com have achieved profitability in their online video efforts, said execs on a panel in New York last night, according to an account on Multichannel News. The two networks have clear and aggressive strategies for distributing TV shows online — MTVN has aimed for wide distribution while ABC has pushed a walled garden of high-quality streams. And apparently, they’re paying off.

For MTV Networks, online video as a business is profitable, said Greg Clayman, executive vice president of digital distribution and business development — but “the bad news is it’s still a small one, certainly relative to the rest of our business.”

Meanwhile, on a gross-margin basis, ABC.com is also profitable, with every streamed episode bringing in a profit (though a smaller profit than that of the TV version). “It took us a while to do that…but it’s been really a good business,” said Albert Cheng, Disney/ABC Television Group executive vice president of digital media. Both Cheng and Clayman spoke of attempting to grow online profits to match and even surpass those made on television.

Karen Gilford of Comcast web portal Fancast was also on the panel talking up the cableco’s coming efforts to give online content to paying customers. She seemed to be in denial about cord-cutting, describing people who drop their TV service for web alternatives as “a theoretical idea rather than a real trend,” according to the Multichannel story.

Sorry, but as a young person (and not just a NewTeeVeester), I can say with certainty that’s just not true. So it’s a good thing to hear networks are actually making money from what’s going to be many people’s reality.

One thing’s for sure: We’ve come a long way from almost exactly two years ago, when MTVN parent Viacom sued YouTube for $1 billion while barely offering legit alternative versions of its shows online.