11 Comments Add your own

• 1. baker  |  December 22nd, 2006 at 10:45 am

  I would argue that it’s not a fear of YouTube cannibalizing site views, but rather, why would any station want to enable GooTube to become known as a destination for regionalized news coverage?

  As indicated by the NECN clips currently posted on YouTube (except for the ones you posted), it’s the user who determines what “belongs” on YouTube or what becomes viral content. If your NECN video is destined to become a hit, the user will put it there without your permission. If that’s a source of “promotion” that you’re ok with, then that’s the value you place upon YouTube, but otherwise, why feed the beast?

  May there never, EVER be a day when someone sitting in his office or home in Boston says to himself, “when I want the latest news about the The Big Dig, I go to YouTube.”

• 2. Safran  |  December 22nd, 2006 at 11:26 am

  Baker: I’m not arguing in favor of putting all your news video on YT. What I’m suggesting is that we use the capabilities YT offers as a promotional tool. I can’t count on The User to put up the videos I, as a producer, think would be a hit.

  There’s no business in putting all your video on YT. But there is tremendous promotional potential. Also, if I post it, I can “burn in” our logo and website.

  Any promotion a TV station can get is worth participating in. I don’t see this as any different than posting a text story and “allowing” people to copy and paste it elsewhere. If NECN becomes “known” as a place for good video, then we’ll benefit from overall increased traffic and, hopefully, viewership of our TV product.

  YT will never been known as the go-to place for news. It’s not reliable. But it is a terrific gathering place for people looking for great video. I say dive in.

• 3. thelosangeleschannel  |  December 22nd, 2006 at 11:35 am

  i say dive in too.

  while baker may hope for “never, EVER… a day” might i suggest the same line of thinking was used when describing craigslist vs. traditional classifieds. and i don’t think that has entirely played itself out yet either.

• 4. Rob  |  December 22nd, 2006 at 2:03 pm

  When we launched our secondary channel - MyNetworkTV - my boss let me think outside the box … so I created a page where we could push promotional videos on YouTube and supplemented that with a MySpace page where our news anchor for our MyNetworkTV news programming blogs daily, with both pages cross-linked.

  We’ve gotten some decent views on the promotional material but haven’t taken that extra step of pushing full-fledged news to YouTube.

• 5. Dave  |  December 22nd, 2006 at 2:25 pm

  At the very least, stations should grab their YouTube identities before someone else steals them. Trust me on this one.

• 6. Don Moore  |  December 22nd, 2006 at 4:58 pm

  YouTube has far better search features and search engine optimization that most television station websites. I would dare say that you have a better chance of seeing a video posted on YouTube than if it was posted on EVERY television station website in the US (except for those who launch videos on their home page).

  Plus, they are paying the bandwidth. Anybody not using the embedded YouTube player is so Web 0.1.

• 7. Don  |  December 22nd, 2006 at 6:56 pm

  Rob’s MyNetwork idea is great.
  Grabbing your station’s ID on YouTube is great.

  Putting a “funny” news video on the service isn’t. How does this help the NECN brand? It doesn’t. If someone watches this clip online - they are not going to be more inclined to watch NECN, because you have gears grinding… this clip is FUNNY… NECN/NECN.com generally are not.

  Daily Show & Colbert clips work well because people see them on YouTube and are more inclined (probably) to watch the TV show. Watching a bunch of politicians sing isn’t going to make me watch the cable station – since that isn’t what I would traditionally find on the air.

  So you don’t get ad impressions, and you aren’t going to move people to your product. What are you left with? The tingly feeling of “being progressive?”

  (p.s. - I know you can take it Steve, or I wouldn’t write it!)

• 8. Steve Safran  |  December 22nd, 2006 at 7:47 pm

  I can absolutely take it, Don. Your ideas are well put, and you have plenty of well-reasoned company.

  Any time I can help take away the notion that you have to maintain complete control over your video, I’m happy. We worry too much about “brand” and the like. We’re in the information business. When we have good information we think people will like, it’s our job to let people have it however they want.

  Will this one clip add substantially to the NECN viewership? No. But it may introduce a few more people to the website and they may try it out.

  As of this evening, the video has had 143 views. Tiny number. We’re not going to lose any revenue. But I bet a lot of those people never saw an NECN video before. Is there any station or site out there that would mind getting sampled by two dozen people per day for free?

  At the site, we prominently feature more “viral video” than we do with the hard stuff. We know what people are more likely to pass around.

  Stations obsess too much over ad impressions. This is promotion. The idea is to get more people to sample your stuff. Give them one freebie and hope they come back for two videos with ads.

  No station ever knows whether their TV promos have an impact. It’s just a guess. With this, we can see how many people watched and we can monitor whether there was an uptick in traffic. It may fail. It may be a bad idea. And that’s the fun of trying.

  What I do know is that the days of trying to have complete control of your content are over. So you might as well take advantage of the technology and use it. Experiment with it. Try, fail, and try again. Just don’t get all worked up with the old notions and cliches.

  Best of all - it doesn’t cost a thing.

  And yes, I like the tingly feeling.

• 9. Don  |  December 23rd, 2006 at 1:12 am

  I like the tingly feeling too — and putting a video up on YouTube and watching the stats is fun.

  I’m the last person to get worked up about old notions — but wasting my time with something that isn’t going to work - and doesn’t make sense, doesn’t do me a bit of good.

  I would venture to guess that those 143 views mostly came from a certain TV blog… and most folks around here already know about NECN.

  BUT: I think the idea does have some merit if the content and brand match. A few weeks ago, the CBS comedy “How I Met Your Mother” had an entire episode centered around one of the character’s “earlier life” as a teen star in Canada. The show featured “Robin Sparkles’” video - Let’s Go To The Mall. It was very funny — and CBS reported (via TVWeek if I remember correctly) that they saw a ratings spike the week after the video hit YouTube.

  The problem with your hypothesis that giving folks a free video will get them to go to NECN.com is flawed, I think. When I go slumming on YouTube, they do such an AMAZING job of being sticky that I am not punching up other websites to watch video. And again, I go back to the original thought: that one funny or good video is the exception, not the rule on a news site. If you had a “funny clips” show on NECN, that free taste MIGHT get me to watch your TV product later… but it’s not going to move me to your website.

  We should take all that energy, and as an industry CATCH UP to YouTube. We’re getting our butts kicked folks — again and again. All of us stuck with Windows Media need to convince the bosses to switch to Flash — and feature embedding, e-mailing and other ideas.

• 10. thelosangeleschannel  |  December 23rd, 2006 at 7:06 am

  is this the same “Don” who is playing catch-up with craig’s via zidaho?

  just wondering.

  and what’s with the idahoradio thing? can seem to get it to resolve anywhere.

• 11. Liey  |  January 18th, 2008 at 7:05 am

  Wow, thanks for the excellent information!

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