Perhaps the single biggest takeaway from the 2012 TV Summit is that Yahoo is trying REALLY hard to drum up Hollywood awareness of its new video content production strategy. The website sponsored the event and the Yahoo logo was front and center everywhere.

“We’ve got eight out of 10 people online touching Yahoo.com.” said Yahoo’s VP of  originals & video programming Erin McPherson in a new-media panel discussion.  “We call ourselves the ‘fifth network.’ That’s aspriational. But we’re TV on steroids. We’re creating a TV consumer experience but adding social and mobile.”

They’re also creating some nice swag. I was given not one, but two shiny blue Yahoo pens from a booth inside the  Summit. Very nice.

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New media video content is getting plenty of play here at Variety‘s TV Summit in Hollywood. The question on plenty of people’s minds is what can we expect to see from the Huffington Post’s new “Streaming Network?” Thankfully, AOL Studios’ head of original video Gabriel Lewis was here earlier to explain.

“The mission is to take everything great and unique on Huffington Post and take it to video,” Lewis said in a panel discussion on the ‘surging strength of original web programming.’ “I do not have CNN’s budget, let’s get that out of the way. But we feel that people are beyond being talked to, they want to be talked with. We can create content that fosters autentic conversation, and not just talking points you have to hit before a break.”

Let’s see… Huffington Post as a model… no money… variety of viewpoints… are we talking about relying on a video network of unpaid contributors?

We spoke to Lewis after his panel was finished to get the full story.

“Our video content will be shot and produced in our studio, by paid professionals. We want a more democratic form of content, but we don’t want Chatroulette. You need a filter. If Huffpost contributors want to appear on those programs, they’ll be able to. They won’t be paid in that instance. But it’s like appearing on any talk show. You don’t get paid to be a guest on the radio either.”

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