From NPR's `Talk of the Nation': YouTube's Amateur Video Revolution May Be Over
Through a really unexpected chain of events, I was asked to be a guest on NPR's `Talk of the Nation' this afternoon to discuss the piece I wrote for yesterday's San Jose Mercury News, `As online viewing booms, the amateurs give way to big media.' Twenty minutes, as usual, went by in a flash, and host Neil Conan was kind enough to mention CinemaTech and my book, `The Future of Web Video' (more than once.) We also took a few calls.
NPR has the audio here. And here's their description of the segment:
Web sites like YouTube turned any wanna-be director with a video camera and an internet connection into a full-fledged broadcaster and has left most of main stream media struggling to keep up. But author Scott Kirsner argues in his op-ed in Sunday's San Jose Mercury News that the online video pendulum is swinging from quirky home videos back to professional grade quality.
posted by Scott Kirsner at
9:17 PM
1 Comments:
Let's not forget that mainstream broadcasters have been feeding an appetite for amateur video for a while now with programs like America's Funniest Home Videos. Much of YouTube has simply been an extended version of that show, without the "censorship" or crappy sentimental jokes from a cheesy host. But we can only watch so much of one thing for so long, and I think your point is well taken: competition from mainstream "pros" will elevate the quality of online content and ultimately supplant a lot of the amateur stuff. Viewers will eat up the slick, funny, well-produced webisodes if it's there for the taking. And truth be told, viewers DON'T CARE where the content is coming from. If it entertains them and feeds a short attention span, they'll keep on clicking.
But I think the other point you were making got a bit lost under the more provocative "amateur video is dead" headline. And that point, which continues to be more important than whether NBC and CBS serve up popular online content, is how "non-pro" creators will continue to benefit from incredible ACCESS to audiences via the Internet. Those who demonstrate the talent to deliver professional, innovative creative material will find an audience without any help from the mainstream media moguls, and that is something that remains revolutionary. No matter how many hits David Letterman gets on YouTube, some amateur will still rise up to get those kinds of numbers, if less often now that the networks are in on the action. Ultimately, talent will win out regardless of whether that talent is on NBC's payroll or working from their parents' garage in Montana. And that's still key. That's the revolution. Sometimes the amateur will have someting we'll all hunger to see--and it will be something we would never have seen if not for the Internet. I don't think anybody laments the demise of the "household object explodes in microwave" video.
By the way, I love Cinematech!
By
Helena Handbasket, at 10:19 PM
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