So How Did the First-Ever YouTube Music Awards Go Last Night?

There certainly was a lot of pre-event hype and news coverage.  Word was that 60 million people cast votes for the event.  Arcade Fire, Emimen and YouTube darling Lady Gaga performed.  So how many millions tuned it to actually watched what happened?

Er, they didn’t.  At least not by the millions.  

The median viewership for Sunday’s event was 180,000.  It peaked at about 215,000.

To put it another way, a new episode of The Big Bang Theory regularly attracts 1.5 million people in Canada and then times that number in the US.  So what happened?

1.  Timing.  Although I didn’t try very hard to find out when the broadcast started, I assumed it would be around 8pm ET.  From what I gather, it started around 6.  I was still watching football.

2. YouTube is not for appointment viewing.  People go to YouTube to watch stuff on their own terms. Almost no one uses YouTube to watch something in real time.  Like millions of other people, I wait until after something happens and then go to YouTube to watch the highlights.

3.  How were you supposed to find the live stream?  Again, I didn’t try very hard.  Typing in www.youtube.com would have provided the link.  But how many people actually start their YouTube viewing by going to their home page?

4. Did the artists involved in the broadcast get behind promoting it?  I can’t say that I saw many tweets from Eminem or Arcade Fire.  You?

5.  There were technical issues.  Lots of mics cutting in and out.  And too many performances (Tyler the Creator, for example) had much of the content bleeped out.  That no doubt annoyed a great number of people.

6. What was up with Lady Gaga?  What’s with the tears?  

7. It was the first time YouTube has done something like this.  Staging any awards show is extremely difficult.  I’m sure they’ll learn from their mistakes.