All right. And your next question comes from Dick Wei with JP Morgan. Please proceed.
Dick Wei - JP Morgan
Hi. Morning, Charles and Herman. Just a follow up on the video side, wonder approximately what is the cost and the margin if I look at the video channels on a standalone basis? And secondly, what about in terms of advertising, any advertising comes from user generated content versus premium content? Thanks.
Charles Chao
Okay. It''s very difficult to carve out the costs for video platform, I mean, because this is, I think there are two major costs of video, one is the content, the other is the bandwidth actually. And in the area of bandwidth, we actually work, I mean, combine these bandwidth position with other, our major website operations.
So it''s difficult to say, I mean, which area actually exactly leads to video and in addition we had a strategic cooperation with China Telecom. So under this arrangement we get free bandwidth, I mean, for a lot of our video -- for our Podcasting platform, I mean, for the IDCs and the China Telecom.
So it''s really a mixed picture, I mean, but I think this -- it is a part of -- significant part of operations, the content cost as well as our web operation cost. And this was already reflected in our, in the increase of our cost advertising in the past two years. And so I don''t think there will be any unusual trend in this area going forward.
And at this point, it''s difficult to really assess independently what kind of a profit margin we can generate from video platform itself because we do not view video, I mean, platform as an independent platform for our operations. It''s not independent platform for our total, I mean, business but rather this is integrated part of our total content offerings.
And this is a very important strategy we have in that we view our portal, our online content platform as an integrated platform with multiple multimedia content with multiple platforms including PCs, mobile phones as well in the future maybe TV.
And so at this point, I think we are still in my assessment, I mean, trying to build very robust platform, try to attract more users so when that monetization opportunity comes with the scale, we''ll be benefiting from that.
And even today, I think with our integrated platform, we’re able to attract more users -- advertisers, I mean, for our platforms than most of our competitors. And so this probably is something that we should view on an overall basis as a strategy, not really assess, at this point assess the revenue and the content -- the revenue and the cost independently at this point.
And your second question regarding the monetization for our user-generated content. I think the user-generated content in the video area, I mean, has a lot of problem in terms of the copyright.
So typically we do not actually monetize too much from our user generated content except we use that as a platform for the community and for attracting more user base for our video platform. So that we, on an overall basis, we can find more users and we can develop a very strong habit among the users to access SINA for their video offerings.
And so this is part of the integrated video strategy and we do not intend, I mean, to have very significant monetization from user generated content or video, at least not in the near future.
And so I think currently, the advertising is more from the premium content, I mean, which we acquired or cooperate with other content providers of TV stations or movie producers, I mean, in China or around the world. I hope that answers your question, Dick.
Operator
And your next question comes from Vivian Li with Piper Jaffray. Please proceed.
Vivian Li - Piper Jaffray
Hi. Good morning Charles, Herman and Cathy.
Charles Chao
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