Curses, Boyled Again

The first record to reach Gold status was in 1942 when Glenn Miller was presented a copy of Chattanooga Choo Choo sprayed with gold lacquer to celebrate the album's success. To "go Gold", Platinum or double-Platinum is now short-hand for musical success.

Well, I have just submitted "to Go Boyle" to Urbandictionary.com as a measure of success for online video. I know it doesn't have the cachet of a precious metal, but given the current incumbent "viral" is usually followed by the word "infection" I think it's moving things a step up the ladder.

"Our" Susan (I was born in the UK) will be a milestone in the growth of video online. Her first performance on Britain's Got Talent is now the most viewed clip of all time.

Forgetting the fact that the world needs to feel good when there's a recession, the real story for the digital industry is that we have a piece of content that has reached 200 million views for the first time.

In years to come, 200 million views per month for online video will be as normal as having 200 million page views. For now however, 200 million views represents a huge audience. Given this success, you would expect to see scenes of online execs tobogganing down mountains of dollar notes at Google and ITV.

Unfortunately, there were no mountains, no toboggans “ not even one dollar note. As the audience for the clips grew passed 100 million, the total ad revenue from the YouTube clips was a highly unstimulating $0.00 because ITV had insisted that no ads be shown against the video until a revenue sharing agreement had been agreed with YouTube/Google.

Quoted on the Guardian's website, an ITV spokesman said: "ITV, Talkback Thames and Syco are exploring the options for monetising traffic on YouTube. We are delighted that Britain's Got Talent has been such a success across all of ITV's platforms." The spokesman then turned around, momentarily distracted by the sound of bolting horses dragging ITV commercial managers into the sunset of their careers.

Step one for online content producers and publishers is to work out the business model for video and implement it. As I wrote from MIPTV recently, online and mobile revenue streams are more fragmented than traditional media models. There are likely to be at least six revenue streams online for video. All of them need to be put in place and activated. It is not good enough to experiment with subscription, then pay-per-view, then free with advertising. Use all of them. The user will decide what suits them best. It's called choice. While I was at Channel Nine, we offered shows on an ad-supported model via ninemsn, and also pay-per-download via iTunes. In isolation, neither revenue streams were revolutionary, but together there was the foundation of a business.

Step two is to create content which is created for the internet. Made for online content will build a sustainable audience more effectively than a traditional show. Natalie Tran's ongoing success via her local Australian channel on YouTube with over 70 million views in two years shows how to grow a loyal audience. No one-off Boyle here, "Our" Natalie (I'm also an Australian citizen) is proof positive that matching the message to the medium is the way towards Internet Boyledom.

Step three is to combine the content and the business model across multiple platforms. For a video production to be commercially and creatively successful, it should find its audience and tell them a good story. As audiences are looking for content online and on mobile as well as on television, the next Big Boyle moment will be when a show comes along that tells its story fluently across all these platforms.

This article was first published in Digital Media Magazine.