The prevailing topic of discussion at the National Association of Broadcasters meeting in Las Vegas this week may have sounded a bit like the old Chicken or Egg discussion... in reverse. 

Network executives need to figure out a way to capture the eyes of young, affluent viewers who are more likely to watch videos on their portable players than on their set top box. And yet they also need to figure out how to stop those same viewers from watching their copyrighted and pirated content on youtube.com. 

One thing is for sure, the numbers are in -- online video viewing is here to stay, and YouTube continues to be the big winner. New numbers posted this week by comScore Inc show February's numbers up 66% over the previous year. The Goliath in the market captured one third of the market, or 10 billion views (up from 15% last year), while TV networks made a dismal showing. ABC for instance captured 1% of the market; CNN captured 1.3 %...you see the trend.

The conundrum for network executives continues to be whether or not to focus on fighting the piracy that fuels part of YouTube's growth. Or just capitalize on it, while building a better mousetrap.  YouTube has offered content owners the opportunity to pull those videos that are posted illegally or tag them and capitalize advertising revenue of them.

And that mousetrap?  Hulu.com, the joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp., only launched last month but early reviews show that comScore's numbers will surely become hotly anticipated each month.