Esmee Denters
Esmee decided some 9 months ago, to put her webcam captured singing online on YouTube. Her video’s have been watched over 30 million times. Last week it landed her a record deal with Justin Timberlake. Denters worked her way into the music industry without competing in TV-shows like Idols and without doing any auditions to convince top executives in the biz to give her a contract. She just started singing and became so popular, that the big labels couldn’t go around her anymore, and all wanted her to sign with them. I think it’s great she didn’t choose for the big old moguls, but instead signed with Timberlake’s new company Tennmen Records. Yet another blow to the old industry. In YouTube she’s entered the top 10 of most subscribed channels with almost 50.000 subscribers.
El Observador
Last month Venzuelan president Hugo Chavez cut off Radio Caracas Television (RCTV). It was one more step in his try to control the press and what journalists want to say to the public about his actions to make sure he gets re-elected in 2012. But that didn’t stop the journalists from reaching out to the public. Their YouTube channel is the most subscribed channel of the week (doubling number 2 in the list), and already more than 300.000 people have viewed the reports that are being published.
Of course the reach is less than the reach of the broadcasting channels in Venzuela, but can be viewed by anyone with an internet connection: the message is out there. Of course it remains toe be seen for how long. YouTube does have a history of being closed off to the general public of a country when its reign so desires, as showed by the closing in Thailand.
To advance democracy
Nevertheless, it is yet another sign of the possibilities the platform creates for individuals. Chad Hurley, founder of YouTube, laid out the three goals his company has for the platform during his speech to the American House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet last month: “to promote community, advance democracy, and create economic growth“.
All goals are reached due to the equal opportunities YouTube creates for everyone to be heard. I for one believe in such a democracy especially in this day and age. The individual power everyone has, can not be stopped and should indeed be enhanced technologically.
Power to the platform that empowers individuals!
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i agree with you, although the chavez case has some other aspects that are interesting. for example, he waited until the contract of this broadcaster was up for renewal. but that is another discussion.
what i wonder is about the business model on a platform like youtube. for esmee denters it is quite obvious. but for radio caracas it is less clear. how is this broadcaster going to stay alive? is it sponsoring? is it advertisement? or is youtube going to offer transactional viewing? interesting, but i have no idea how this will last. or are we entering the era of empowered ‘volunteers’?
Kotler has his 5 P’s, we have the 4 C’s and Jurg always has his 5 ‘?’s… What do you think Jurg? how is this broadcaster going to stay alive? is it sponsoring? is it advertisement? or is youtube going to offer transactional viewing? interesting, but i have no idea how this will last. or are we entering the era of empowered ‘volunteers’?
ok, point taken
youtube will have to offer some ‘help’ with making money if they want to be a platform for these kind of ‘censored’ or broadcasters. i don’t think a broadcaster like caracas will stay alive without income.
caracas might make money from subscriptions. either in exchange for some product (restricted access) or based on support for their goals (charity.) both require some sort of online infrastructure. this is an immense opportunity for youtube.
they might money from advertisement. if youtube is their only outlet they have either include the advertisment in their broadcasts or youtube needs to come up with some scheme of revenue share for pages (with ads) visited.
last, caracas might have a benefactor, a sponsor taking all the costs. this might be anything from states (like free press in encouraged in iran) to some individual or company (like al jazeera?)
if these platforms are not going to offer ‘help’ with generating revenue the offering of organized broadcasts will not last. so what do we have? we end up with volunteers. the individuals will try to get a contract through exposure, if they are serious. the organized groups of volunteer individuals is similar to wikipedia. they are the more passionate about a subject, or the passionate about the activity.
caracas is now very passionate to prove a point. but this passion will not pay the bills.
That what Chavez did was not to renew RCTV’s contract is not a minor fact, if we are talking about democracy. It was part of his faculties. The media, which is very powerful -at least I can testify that it is in this side of the world-, can manipulate the population’s opinion quite easily. Specially in this case where there are US interests (an attempt to overthrow him only 5 years ago in 2002 was directly supported or even organized by the US, what other proof is necessary?).
So I wouldn’t worry about the business model of the former runners of RCTV.
They are supported by big international corporations harmed by the policies of Chavez. So in this case it is not the empowerment of the individual, but the use of these new tools by already powerful sectors.
YouTube has announced recently that it will start sharing ad revenue with the people who upload their content to the site. So there are some possibilities to financially stay afloat.
But I mentioned this example as I thought (wrong?) that indeed the power of this community (RCTV-employees) would be so much dedicated to the cause, that they would keep on making the episodes even without being paid. So I was not that much worried about whether or not it would stay on air…
Is Esmee really empowerment?
Surely access to a wide audience was key to this succes.
Her sound and singing quality as well.
The purity of no-pimping is a differentiator.
In addition the fact that you can directly communicate with her is new, she is singing a lot of request, people give feedback… it is a real audience. But the webcam can’t be undervalued as well… the fact that she is missing “I will always miss you” with her droopy eyes straight in the cam as if she is singing to YOU… and the fact hat you can daily see how she is… her mood, her clothes, her hair… reality-TV.
So to conclude, Esmee is more empowered than the days when musicians had to send in demo-tapes to the music VP’s… Esmee already has an audience (globally)… but did that change her contract? so was she more empowered to win the young-girl-want-to-be-a-singer survival of the fittest contest… so empowered vs her peers ? or did she really got a different contract… so empowered vs the industry?
I was browsing YouTube on the subject of Atlantropis, the top-story of this week… I used the keyword Congo and stumbled over this Dutch (sorry) YouTube video-clip. WOW! I find that a great piece of getting your message across… do check it out!
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