ABC News’ new show uses webcast as tease

Don Day August 8th, 2007

So I didn’t “catch” ABC News’ new magazine show i-Caught last night. I browsed over to the site, and found today’s webcast - “Does a sexy title mean more views for internet video?” Hmm. Sounds intriguing. After a few little anecdotes, the host tee’d up an experiment. ABC filmed several short videos - then uploaded them to YouTube. They started with the title “Woman Waits for Bus” - and worked their way up to “Frumpy Turned Hot Woman with Dog & Guitar Attacked by Ninja.” The segment caps with host Don Dahler asking a producer which video got the most clicks. “Don! You knoooow I can’t tell you! To find out, you’ll have to tune into i-Caught this Tuesday!” WHAT?? You just teased me? On the web? Really?

So instead of going to the effort of TiVo’ing the show… I hit up YouTube and did some research. The verdict? None of the videos got much notice.

Woman Waits for Bus - 16 views
Man Waits for Bus - 58 views
Hot Woman Waits for Bus - 50 views
Guitar Woman Waits for Bus,Music - 40 views
Singing Dog and Woman Wait for Bus - 37 views
Frumpy Turned Hot Woman with Dog & Guitar Attacked by Ninja - 147 views
Woman Attacked by Ninja at Bus (stop motion) - 245 views

The webcast itself has seen 249 views. i-Caught’s premiere tied for second place on ABC last night