YouTube Yawns at Letterman’s Extortion Story
by Peter Kafka
Posted on October 3, 2009 at 8:16 AM PT
In certain circles, David Letterman’s extortion/adultery story is huge news. On YouTube? It’s a yawn.
Don’t get me wrong: Google’s (GOOG) video site still appears to be the only place to see Letterman’s jaw-dropping admission that he has had affairs with staffers on his show and that a CBS (CBS) employee attempted to extort him with that information.
Those clips aren’t supposed to be there, and CBS and YouTube keep taking them down, but people keep uploading them. Here’s one that appears to come from a Portuguese user, for instance.
But I had a hunch that the story, which involves a man who has been on late night TV longer than many YouTube users have been alive, might not resonate with the site’s core demo. And data from video-tracking service TubeMogul make me think that’s the case. Here’s the report I got from TubeMogul marketing director David Burch:
Pirated versions only racked up 130,624 views throughout the day, mostly because CBS didn’t post an official version of the clip and was issuing take-down orders (they had already removed five versions of the clip by the time we ran our first report this morning). By way of comparison, pirated clips of the UFC Kimbo Slice fight totaled 1,074,531 views in the past 24 hours.
Oddly, CBS News’ channel released four news videos about the story today, but youtube.com/cbs only had Letterman’s Madonna interview rather than the clip everyone actually wanted to see.
Never heard of Kimbo Slice before? Like Fred, he’s yet another YouTube sensation, albeit one who’s graduated to TV.
Comments
Hmmm…
Couple of quibbles here.
First the only thing that would be jaw-dropping about Letterman’s sex life would be a claim that he DIDN’T have affairs with his staff over the years, during which he was mostly single, rich, and powerful (in his sphere of influence).
His “admission” was fairly ham-handed as such things go in my opinion. As a Letterman fan from many years ago his shtick is fairly well established (and not even his invention): you set up the punch line, and then pause long enough for the audience to figure out what it is (or in many cases mentally supply a better one). Howls of laughter ensue. As one commenter suggested it has become a Pavlovian response, not requiring actual humor at all.
Even though the subject was a serious one, I’m quite sure that Letterman counted on the laughter to dilute whatever guilt his audience might have imputed to him.
My guess though is that much of the traffic these things got was due to the story being a headline on Drudge for a couple of days (and still, I think). Appearance on Drudge practically guarantee that it will be the subject of conservative talk shows.
Other than that, neither his performance, or the news itself are particularly interesting. It certainly did give a lot of Sarah Palin fans a chance to fire back at yet another liberal hypocrite (they come in all shapes and sizes and political persuasions).
By comparison The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson contains regular true admissions of past wrongdoings without a lot of excuse-making and without the necessity of being prompted by a blackmail attempt.
While I watch no TV at all for the past 8 years or so, except when visiting others, the monologue Ferguson did on the benefits of AA (without naming them) was a masterpiece by comparison to much of what is put out by the media today. I did actually see that online after being introduced to the show by a neighbor. If I watched TV at all I’d be skipping Letterman and watching Ferguson.
Posted by Mac Beach at October 3rd, 2009 at 6:03 pmYou don’t watch TV? You should. Plenty of good stuff there. Also, it will occupy you for a bit.
Posted by Peter Kafka at October 5th, 2009 at 6:01 am