Two years ago, Amanda Congdon was an actress looking for her first big break. Now, she might just have changed the face of broadcasting. Rocketboom, her weekday show, is a smart, irreverent three-minute riff on global affairs.
Blessed with blonde cover-girl looks, Congdon talks politics from her bed, muses on “What’s up with France?”, admires “fractal” food and interviews geeks. She has worn a surgical mask on air, and introduces reports from a team of correspondents stationed in locations as diverse as Prague and Nairobi. Her arch, unconventional presenting style is a blend of The Day Today and Lorraine Kelly, just managing to stay on the friendly side of ironic.
With 250,000 viewers tuning in daily, the 24-year-old New Yorker has become a celebrity beyond American shores, and racked up an appearance (“as herself”) in the hit crime series CSI.
The twist? Don’t expect to catch the show on television, no matter how many channels you’re paying for. Rocketboom.com transmits only on the web, and loves it that way. Just as blogging liberated publishing, videocasting is liberating television, dissolving the divide between professional and amateur, creating a new galaxy of stars with a potential global audience that few television stations can match.
“It’s like the Wild West at the moment,” says Congdon, who produces the show with her business partner and co-creator, Andrew Baron. “I think that anyone can do it, if they have a computer and a $300 Best Buy camera.”
For this Generation@ video star, success is no longer about securing your own television show; it’s about making your own vlog a hit. Willing presenters are lining up. “We’re going to create a network of video bloggers on a range of topics,” Congdon says. She receives three to four e-mails per day, asking for jobs. “We want people in every big city, and even a few not-so-big ones. We’re not restricted like mainstream media. We do a different thing every day. Sometimes it’s news, sometimes it’s citizen journalism, sometimes it’s cultural commentary, sometimes it’s sketch comedy.”
Congdon groupies are not alone in taking to the streets with their camcorders and videophones at the ready. Whether it’s a gonzo journalist sounding off, a family creating a holiday diary or an arty take on a daily coffee, webcasting is creating cult media personalities. They include Steve Garfield, the “father of vlogging” and master of conversational to-camera walkabouts; the confessional Clark Saturn, at ZipZapZop.tv, who recently webcast an interview with his natural mother about why she put him up for adoption; the attractive cast of the swinging cocktail-lounge comedy show TikiBar.tv; or Kevin Rose and Dan Huard’s tech tips at Revision3.com.
One of the few UK contenders carving out its own niche is This Is a Knife, a daily online show that trawls the oddities of the weird wide web.
“It’s reasonably funny, but hopefully growing better as we gain in confidence, like prime ministers,” says presenter Donal Coonan, 24. A producer friend came up with the idea, specifically as a UK answer to Rocketboom, and pitched it to Channel 4. “We’re feeling our way in the dark, in terms of creativity,” he says. “That’s great for us. We’re given quite a free rein at the moment.”
This Is a Knife could dovetail into the chaotic structure of The 11 O’Clock Show, but Channel 4 transmits it solely as a webcast. For Coonan, who has won his first presenting job online rather than on television, the medium is vital. “The internet is becoming the place where you can make stuff, find an audience and immediately get feedback on it,” he says.
The video revolution has exploded in the past six months alone, driven by ever faster internet services, dirt-cheap kit and television viewers shifting online. In broadcasting’s multichannel universe, time-shifting with personal video recorders has created an appetite for niche programming on demand, not shackled to conventional schedules. Today, the web can satisfy those audiences.
Full-screen, television-quality video has finally become a reality on desktop computers, thanks to net connections between 2Mbps and 8Mbps, and innovative software media players from the BBC, Skybybroadband and Get Democracy. Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s head of new media, expects that 40% of all viewing will come from outside current schedules within the next five years, through on-demand catch-up of scheduled programmes, archive broadcasts and, increasingly, what has been dubbed “consumer-generated” content — in other words, home-made. Inevitably, it’s young surfers who seek out video content created by their peers in the shift away from established sources.
“Sky+ has done traditional media a huge service in demonstrating that we would like to structure our own news and programmes,” says David Dunkley Gyimah, one of the self-confessed new pretenders, whose award-winning View magazine pushes at the boundaries of webcasting. “Although I don’t think people will abandon television, there has been a cultural shift.”
Plummeting prices for high-definition video cameras have brought film-making within reach of everyone, while the ubiquity of portable video devices fuels demand for viewing on the move.
Congdon attributes the explosion of the vlogging scene in the States to the launch of Apple’s video iPod last October.
Simple software such as iMovie makes editing and compressing video for web transmission easier than ever.
Dunkley Gyimah sees a “digital reformation” unfolding in the way viewing material is produced and shared. Nowadays, you don’t even need your own website: you can upload free to online galleries such as YouTube, Video Bomb and Google Video.
In marked contrast to the USA, offerings at the few original British vlogging and vidcast sites are flimsier than one of Jordan’s dresses. (For vlog, think daily diary on screen; the more formatted vidcast equates to a television news bulletin.) British contributions to date tend to consist of one-minute wonders from a drunken Friday night on the town, bloopers pinched from Sky Sports and You’ve Been Framed-style antics. This, despite research from Google claiming Britons spend more time online than watching television (an average of 164 minutes daily, against 148 minutes).
“We’re not as advanced as the States,” Dunkley Gyimah says. “They took to broadband access more quickly. There’s a great appetite to challenge the status quo, as well as a greater community of bloggers and vloggers who support each other — not like the silo mentality here. They are more aggressive about it, and know how to sell themselves.”
While US vlogging springs from a tight-knit indie community, here main media such as Channel 4 and the BBC are striving to engage with underground trends to generate British vidcasts (a forthcoming comedy portal, BBC Soup, promises a stand-up lounge for up-and-coming comics to post their clips). Such backing also acts as an important filter mechanism.
“A big problem is that there’s so much rubbish,” Coonan says of the clips submitted to YouTube, among many portals. “That’s what’s good about broadcasters getting involved: you don’t want to be inundated with videos of happy slaps and cats falling off chairs.”
Another prominent UK podcaster believes the dearth of British vlogs comes down to differences in national character. Mark Hunter’s regular Glasgow-based music show, the Tartan Podcast (www.tartanpodcast.co.uk), has won plaudits worldwide for airing unsigned Scottish bands. He has toyed with the idea of adding video to his widely followed audio offerings, but is reticent. “There’s a reason why most of us are in audio and not video,” he says. “Most of us are guys in our mid-30s who sit in front of computers, and we don’t want to be seen dead on film. Americans love getting up and spouting forth. We’re all really quite reserved.”
Wherever they come from, the next generation of media stars will face the perennially thorny problem of making money online. The market researcher ComScore reports that the prime con-sumers of online video are 35- to 54-year-olds, who make perfect advertising targets because marketeers can tailor their ads to such a niche audience more precisely than any television station.
By way of illustration, Rocketboom recently auctioned a week’s advertising on Amanda’s bulletin through eBay, selling to the highest bidder for £22,500. Not bad for a show that is put together for £11 a pop. The cash encouraged the Rocketboomers to hire more people, so is a mini media empire in the offing? Congdon’s new-found fame has brought Hollywood calling, but she maintains she’s not about to sell out or look to TV for validation. “I’m not against television, but people don’t have to do the mainstream thing. There are going to be business models online. Whatever I do in Hollywood would be in addition to Rocketboom.”
It’s hard to see why she would want to make the switch to network television. Meddling executives, heavily edited content and strict schedules would replace the freedom, fun and community of a web show. Perhaps most important, her global audience would be exchanged for a parochial one.
Dunkley Gyimah is in a similar boat. “We’re approaching a time when the effectiveness of the web means you can say, ‘I’m not going to migrate to television — Israel, China, Taiwan are watching.’ You can’t do that anywhere else. The only thing we shouldn’t shy away from is experimenting.
“If you want to do a programme on your allotment with your tomatoes, then so what? It’s your programme. If people don’t like it, they don’t have to watch it. Actually, that could be very good.”
Additional research: Katrina Manson
Where to sample the DIY vlogging revolution
CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
www.channel4.com/knife Serendipitous daily journey across the web
current.tv Slick, amateur-made documentaries about world events
www.pleix.net/films.html Virtual community of digital artists
revision3.com/diggnation Weekly must-see vidcast for tech buffs
www.revver.com/video/11609 Controversial documentary on 9/11
www.theradblog.typepad.com Film-maker travels round the world
www.tropisms.org Absorbing short documentaries from across the globe
tinyurl.com/fx7jj Round-table discussion by self-titled Pod Squad
www.turnhere.com Global city guides
xtv.ex.ac.uk Exeter’s student channel
ENTERTAINMENT ON DEMAND
www.64mm.com/vlog Guerrilla skateboarding clips
www.chasingmills.blogspot.com Offbeat slice-of-life drama about a couple’s up and downs
snipurl.com/badchairs Vid-phone antics
stevegarfield.blogs.com Comedy, satire and dear-diary-style walkabout
www.tikibartv.com Hilarious sketch show about creating new cocktail recipes
tinyurl.com/azbrv Death-defying mountain climber
tinyurl.com/foclq Production diary from the making of King Kong
tinyurl.com/g7yhj Breathtaking urban gymnastics from shirtless Russian
tinyurl.com/jmaqf Extreme skateboarding tricks
tinyurl.com/lyvsh Lightsabre duel
tinyurl.com/rfuk6 Speed sock-skating
twochineseboys.blogspot.com Ace pop lip-syncers
CURRENT AFFAIRS
hotzone.yahoo.com One-man reports from global war zones
www.humanwire.org Serious-minded reports on politics, technology and life
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation and
www.itvlocal.tv Viewers’ DIY videos
www.nowpublic.com World news
tinyurl.com/nnx9b The War Tapes
www.videoreporter.nl African reports
www.viewmagazine.tv Award-winning UK reportage, photography, talking heads
www.wearethemedia.com News source for video bloggers
PORTALS (parental guidance advised)
www.apollopony.net Amanda’s top vlogs
www.getdemocracy.com TV player
www.ifilm.com Fan films, funny shorts
www.ourmedia.org Documentaries
www.podguide.tv General-interest guide
www.revver.com General interest
tinyurl.com/hcmtz Academic lectures
tinyurl.com/zsebl Open-source movies at the Internet Archive
typolis.net/shortsville Arty shorts
www.veoh.com General interest
www.vidblogs.com Diaries, docs, art
www.videobomb.com General interest
video.google.com General interest
www.videosift.com Selections
www.vlogmap.org World map of vlogs
www.youtube.com General interest
www.zippyvideos.com General interest
