SnapShot: YouTube’s Top 5 Channels vs Obama, ranked 34

Obama has declared he’ll be using YouTube to provide weekly addresses to the nation and the world, I want to start taking snapshots of the analytics in order to understand the changes that are happening to our world. Each generation has it’s medium, and this one is the web –let’s see how our leadership grasps this.

The following is the most subscribed channels of all time. I use this as a primary measure as if someone subscribes it means they’re asking for updates whenever new content is published, preference. The following is a snapshot of numbers of the most Subscribed (All Time) YouTube Channels.

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YouTube’s Top 5 Most Subscribed Channels of all Time:

#1 Fred

This skit act from a very hyperactive spaz who had too many moutain dew and twizzlers publishes ‘burst’ style videos featuring non stop high-pitched clips stringed along designed to keep the attention of pre-teens, teens, and the occasional web strategist. Fred is now the star of the New TV conference. Notice the few amount of videos Fred has produced and high viewership.
Type: Comedian
Videos: 35
Joined: October 01, 2005
Videos Watched: 16,203
Subscribers: 647,697
Channel Views: 19,314,418

#2 Nigahiga

This Hawaiian comedy group does satires, interviews and slapstick style stunts.
Type: Comedian
Videos: 57
Joined: July 20, 2006
Videos Watched: 11,693
Subscribers: 632,891
Channel Views: 17,116,311

#3 Smosh

Two college age guys produce skit comedy.
Type: Comedian
Videos: 60
Joined: November 19, 2005
Videos Watched: 20,161
Subscribers: 597,161
Channel Views: 21,898,415

#4 Universal Music Group

The only ‘mainstream’ media channel to make it to the list, this shows TV clips and shows as a secondary medium to the TV screen. They’ve published a whopping 8k videos, a scattershot strategy, far beyond any of the other top 5.
Type: Director
Videos: 8,905
Joined: August 23, 2006
Subscribers: 499,766
Channel Views: 18,214,102

#5 Jonas Brothers Music

The only mainstream music group to make the top 5, the Jonas Brothers Music publish vids, behind the scenes videos and tour updates.
Type: Musician
Videos: 72
Joined: May 11, 2007
Videos Watched: 1,474
Subscribers: 385,888
Channel Views: 18,845,718

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The reason I’m posting these channel numbers is because I’m watching carefully the changes that will happen from Obama’s promise to be a YouTube president. He plans on publishing weekly videos from the white house to provide a human face as well as accepting feedback in a conversational way. Let’s stop and think about mediums used by past Presidents. Franklin D Roosevelt understood the power of the radio (during an economic crises), and was able to reach millions of Americans in ear shot, John F Kennedy harnessed TV, used makeup to keep his cool over his sweaty opponent and beat out and reached millions of American homes to beat out Nixon by 100,000 votes. Now, Obama is using the internet to reach millions around the globe, all at no additional cost of publishing than Fred. Here’s Obama’s stats on his official channel:

#34 Barack Obama’s YouTube Channel

Obama used social media tools for awareness, fundraising and word of mouth marketing. He has committed to doing weekly YouTube videos and publishing on Youtube and Change.gov to the nation and the world, here’s the first video.
Type: Political
Videos: 1,823
Joined: September 05, 2006
Subscribers: 137,570
Channel Views: 19,705,785

Change Dot Gov
Also, this channel has just been created this past week, and is just getting started…

Type: Political
Videos: 4
Joined: November 05, 2008
Subscribers: 4,550
Channel Views: 29,779

Fred vs Obama
Although Fred has almost the same number of Channel Views (both 19million) as the next president, Fred has 640k subscribers, 4.6 times more than Obama’s 137k subscribers. Of course, Fred’s preteen target audience is more likely to be regular YouTube users with registered accounts, they’ve all opted in for his videos.

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I’ll be tracking Obama’s YouTube stats as we move through the next four years, in the meantime, here’s the first of his weekly YouTube video.


Saturday, November 15, 2008 06:00am EST, at the time of this embed, there are only 3,858 views.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Politics, Social Media, Web Usage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.