“Usually, if [you] sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody.” –Steve Jobs, Apple
Next New Networks is doing something right and putting out word that they crossed the 600 million views mark in August is a smart move. What more impressive is thee online network cleared 90 million of those views in just the last three months. The 600 million number count views since its launch in January of 2007, and they are staking their claim as “the all-time most viewed original Internet television programmer on the web.”
We have to applaud this announcement. Some of the traditional studios have been notoriously shy to reveal viewing numbers, probably because they aren’t exactly holding their own with the online-only studios like NNN and Revision3.
Looking at the stats out of the company, it’s clear their savvy pickup, by their Barely Political arm, of our summer favorite, Auto-Tune The News has paid off nicely, coming out as the most popular episode across their network last week. And despite 2009 being a non-election year, Obama Girl proves to still be able to bring in the views, making the top episodes list several times including an “Obama Girl DIES!!” ep that racked up over 1.5 million alone.
NNN’s Indy Mogul channel, which recently launched a new season of its Streamy-winning tentpole Backyard FX along with new series The Reel Good Show, shows it can hold its own next to bikini-sporting politicos busting out over 3.5 million views per month. The do-it-yourself fashion channel Threadbanger also joined the 3.5 million monthly views club. And the lesser known, but strong performing Fast Lane Daily proves there are plenty of car nuts eating up the daily auto news web series.
There are some possible holes in the math from the NNN numbers, and most of the view numbers are coming out of YouTube, which is famously liberal with what exactly counts as a view. There’s also some questions as how the numbers are tabulated with some of their shows coming on board the network after having reached several million views. That said, it’s clear they are picking some winners.
UPDATE: We asked Next New Networks’ Tim Shey about the numbers, and he clarified some of our initial confusion. “We do count the first Obama Girl video (~15mm views), which was the only one made pre-NNN, since we did a full acquisition of Barely Political after the first video,” said Shey over email. In terms of summer stand-out Auto-Tune The News, it is a non-exclusive deal with the show and only views for the episodes shown on the Barely Political channel are counted. For other series, Shey added that views are counted across all
distribution partners. “Views are a total count of all of our partners—including YouTube, Break, Metacafe, Blip, and many others. As well as our own views served onsite. The definition of views is maintained by our partners,” Shey noted. “On our own sites it’s a completed stream, so they average over 2 minutes.”As to how long it will take to crack the 1 billion view mark, assuming it kept at its most recent growth rate, it looks like next summer would be the target. But with the continued growth spike in online video viewing, who knows, it could happen even sooner.
To be sure, there’s still a lot of ground to cover in terms of transparency and metrics in online video. And third party verification of views and engagement numbers is essential for apples to apples comparisons across the networks. For now, even self-reporting is a step in the right direction.
Next New Networks’ Top 10 Current Episodes, Week of Sept 4-11
Next New Networks’ Top 10 Evergreen Episodes, Week of Sept 4-11
Next New Networks’ Top 10 Summer Episodes (June-August 2009)
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