Dear Rob Ford: YouTube is Not Radio or TV

[jon]

Rob Ford to start YouTube show: Why it won’t work
William Wolfe-Wylie
Canada.com
Published: November 29, 2013, 11:51 am

After being booted from Sun News Network and Newstalk 1010, the Ford Brothers have been denied their unfiltered access to a broadcast medium.

Not anymore.

In an announcement on Thursday night, the Ford brothers said they will be launching their own web series on YouTube. According to the National Post, the format of the show will be similar to their radio show, which was cancelled after the mayor admitted to smoking crack cocaine.

The National Post reported that the series will begin before Christmas and will feature the Fords “getting the message out.”

“I want it to look professional, but simple … like Rob and I,” Doug Ford told the paper. “The lovers are going to follow it, and the haters are going to follow it.”

The brothers would not discuss where the series would be produced, or by whom, but said they were covering all costs personally.

“I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars,” he told the National Post.

The new Ford Nation YouTube channel is a gamble, though. The Ford brothers have a penchant for lying during their broadcast opportunities and in an unfiltered environment the show risks descending into pure propaganda.

The mayor of Toronto has become the focus of international attention after he admitted to smoking crack cocaine and police announced that he was the focus of an investigation by homicide detectives, had been photographed accepting packages from an accused drug dealer and accused extortionist and was accused of routinely drinking and driving by his staff. He has also been accused of making homophobic and racist remarks on several occasions and police have been called to his home more than two dozen times, including to investigate domestic disturbances.

A judge has ordered more portions of documents related to the Rob Ford police investigation released next week.

Meanwhile, the mayor has been the focus of comedic attacks from American late-night shows, which is likely blurring the popularity of YouTube as a way for the mayor to “get the message out.”

While videos like this have been viewed millions of times, they are viewed by people who have an established relationship with the show in question and enjoy the comedy.

They are also well produced. The reason the Ford show was cancelled on Sun News Network is it took too long to make. To produce the one-hour segment, which included an extended speech by Ezra Levant, producers at Sun News Network invested five hours of filming time and an additional eight hours of editing time.

Their radio show worked because they were interrupted every five to ten minutes for commercials, traffic reports and a halftime news update.

The lesson is: When the Fords are left to their own devices, they can’t pull together viable video without a lot of help. The end product takes a lot of time and effort. They need mainstream outlets with the resources, expertise and established audiences to get their message out properly.

To go it alone, they have to build the audience essentially from scratch.

The City of Toronto’s official YouTube channel is booming with videos, but each of them have only been viewed a dozen or so times. There are also dozens of Rob Ford channels on YouTube that are proclaiming to be the place to go for Rob Ford news. Searching for Ford Nation on YouTube reveals hundreds of videos relating to the mayor from established providers. Nudging their way in to the mess and differentiating their content is going to be a challenge.

Rob Ford is free to run for mayor of Toronto if he so pleases. But hoping that enough people search the sea of YouTube for his show and watch it on its own merits is likely misguided. He would do better to finally begin co-operating with police and addressing the ongoing allegations against his mayorship that he has yet to address.

[tuned]

Neither is Canada.com or a twitter feed.

Does the writer of the article believe that anyone cares that he's watching a co-workers cat on webcam?
https://twitter.com/wolfewylie

[jon]

But you know the old expression: "from the mouths of babes..."

Be they the pre-school set or fashion models of either gender with low IQs.

[tuned]

The guy that wrote the article is the kind of guy that makes people vote for Rob Ford. Media elite. Check. Cyclist (I'm a better than you because I ride a bike) Check. Techie. (My ego is so big that I send out tweets every five minutes) Just try reading his tweets although I wouldn't recommend it on a full stomach.

[PMC]

Check the Globe & Mail site... saw a bit that says Conrad Black will have Rob Ford as his guest on Vision Tv