The Guardian: Cenk Uygur on the success of The Young Turks (& Being Blacklisted by Harry Reid!) [View All]

[ihavenobias]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/26/cenk-uygur-young-turks|Cenk Uygur on the success of The Young Turks>
The Guardian, Monday 26 April 2010

...TYT covers news and entertainment, and Uygur runs a tight ship, with just six full-time and three part-time staff and a monthly budget of $45,000. Income comes from subscriptions and YouTube revenue sharing, and between June 2008 and December 2009 it doubled to more than $60,000 a month, with margins increasing steadily since then. TYT has no advertising budget: its fans, the TYT Army, provide promotion by tweeting links or posting clips on social networking sites.

In fact, if you're looking for a job, the TYT army is recruiting. "At this point," Uygur says, "we only hire from our audience … We're trying to give you news so you're part of the process – the viewers are the Young Turks. If I get something wrong on air, I get 1,000 emails correcting me instantly and most of our story suggestions come from viewers."

The show has been able to keep pace with the mighty networks it competes with by using its popularity to book http://www.youtube.com/user/TYTInterviews|a wide variety of guests>, some of whom may not return: "I heard from Harry Reid's office, after his interview, that we were effectively blacklisted for future interview requests. I didn't really shed a tear. We're gonna be all right."

In terms of technology awards, TYT beat the competition, including the BBC and Rush Limbaugh, the leading talk radio host, to win http://vodpod.com/watch/2697550-tyt-wins-best-political-podcast-award-for-2009|Best Political Podcast 2009> at the Podcast Awards and http://mashable.com/owa/|Best Political News Site 2009 at the Mashable Awards>. The show was also nominated for the http://vote.streamys.org/|Audience's Choice Award 2010 at the Streamy Awards>...

So how will TYT evolve? Expansion, he says. He and the team have recently launched a sister network, http://www.youtube.com/user/whattheflickshow|What the Flick?!>, on YouTube, which is hosted by the film critic Ben Mankiewicz. He plans to build more online networks: TYT sports, TYT Moms, TYT food – "Whatever matches our brand, and our brand is just: genuine, real and generally progressive"...