I can finally claim to be famousâ€â€I'm on YouTube! Now anyone in the world can see my face, watch my anchoring blunders, and study my reports. But will they? I'm excited about the possibility of getting more hits for KUJH-TV stories by adding them to this video sharing site. I even tried dressing up more and spent more time primping my hair, in hopes that I would present a better image for our station with all this new traffic. However, I'm a bit wary about any spectacular results that may come out of this venture.
We can see the future, but have
we hopped on the train too late?
Photo: Gretchen Wieland
The big three networks all have YouTube channels. Oh wait, no they don't. NBC pulled its official YouTube channel last week with no warning, likely because the channel had run its course. My dream would be that KUJH-TV on YouTube grows exponentially popular and then jumps over to a new medium when it comes along. In reality, I don't think much will change. It will be nice to allow comments on our stories, as well as having the ability to see ratings and the number of views. However, knowing our audience, I'm suspecting most of these will come from our own brilliant class and from proud parents who want to show off the work of their young journalists (At least in the case of my mother, I know this is completely true. She sits at her computer every Thursday, pressing "refresh" until my 3:00 update comes up).
Have I been so jaded by past failures at our humble station that I can't see positives in the future? Maybe so. We've been talking about going live on KUJH-TV News since I've been at KU. Could YouTube finally be the way to get viewers of our stories? I doubt it, but I would love to be wrong. First, we need to figure out how to drive traffic to our channel. The media train may have already pulled out of the station without us, and I hope we have someone speedy enough to jump on the caboose and catch it.
You seem pretty good at playing the devil's advocate here. While NBC did pull their YouTube channel recently it's not necessarily an indication that they were dissatisfied with it. NBC hasn't been playing nice with other media companies for the past few months. They recently pulled all content from iTunes because they claimed Apple wouldn't give them the freedom to price their shows as they wished (one report stated that NBC wanted to sell a show for $5.99). They have now opted to start their own for-pay video download site called hulu.com Ultimately, I think this venture will fail as, like it or not, iTunes is the #1 site for downloading video & music from the internet. The same can be said of YouTube, it's definitely the number one site for viewing video on the internet. I don't think we've missed the train, in fact, I think we may be a little ahead of it. Most news outlets aren't publishing to YouTube currently so one could argue that KUJH is a trailblazer in this area. Feels good, doesn't it?
Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea of putting our content on YouTube so that it's another outlet for people to get some news. And it's all great and swell that we're doing it before other stations...but I really need the question answered, "What is it truly going to change?"
As it stands now, I don't see the YouTube channel adding much to tv.ku.edu, which I thought was our main goal. The two are kind of independent of each other at the moment. Of course, I'm thrilled about the views and the comments we've received so far on the stories (heck, I even anchored the top-viewed stories...may have been my family and friends driving up the numbers). However, I'll be the little skeptic in the corner, needing to see it to believe it.
As for NBC, I definitely see your point. I feel like NBC can survive without its content on YouTube, though. Will people stop watching the network on TV because it's off YouTube? I personally don't think so.
The YouTube content may not actually be adding that much to tv.ku.edu. Right now, I really only see the possibility of driving more traffic to our main page. Brad came up with a good idea in having viewers see our logo and give us some better brand recognition. I'd like to get to a point where we have a short still frame of KUJH and our website before or after the video. It could really help to cement that URL & logo in the minds of our viewers.
Regarding NBC, They will certainly survive without being on YouTube. They are too entrenched in the traditional TV model and frankly most people are happy to get their programming from a TV, albeit now days most use time shifting technologies such as Tivo to watch shows at any time and skip commercials.
Well, your family must be a big one because we're at 99 hits on the flu story as of this post... Another 9 in the last hour. Here's the most important point: We need to get our url into the post somehow. Also, this flurry of views shows us that, if we get a story with appeal (flu season, flu mist) Google has enough power to drive traffic if headline it right. That's SEO, search engine optimization, that we need to think about in our heads.
New ground for copy editors.
Putting our logo or website URL into the videos would be extremely easy to do and it can only help in promoting our site and our videos. I'm going to mess around with some things during my shift next Monday to see how easily I can put our logo into the YouTube videos before posting them up. Can you say subliminal messages?
We think putting "hot blonde" in all headlines will increase traffic, too.
For someone who loves women's liberation, I'm strangely flattered and not opposed to adding that tag.
It's in the name of scientific experiment, Gretch. You are very gracious (and attractive) and understanding about our playing around with the medium. Thanks.
NBC pulled its You Tube channel because they have created there own - Hulu - in beta. & you are a strong anchor regardless of how primped you are (or not).
From Media Watch:
NBC Universal is said to have quietly pulled its official channel on YouTube, which the two companies established in June. The forthcoming NBC-backed video site Hulu -- the so-called "YouTube killer" -- is scheduled for "private beta" testing this month.
http://valleywag.com/tech/online-video/nbc-pulls-youtube-channel-313276.php