The Young Turks Hit Indiegogo Home Stretch

Last week, just ahead of Thanksgiving, The Young Turks majestically hit their Indiegogo goal of $250,000. Helping greatly in that regard were Sean Mackinlay (Canada), Brian Weissman (Seattle) and Diana Francisco (Agoura Hills, CA), who each ponied up $5,000 to have a camera named after them; and New Jersey resident Stephen Perillo, who purchased $15,000 conference-room naming rights. With the TYT gang, we knew there would be fireworks at the end of the crowdfunding run. Sure enough, Cenk Uygur and co. are planning to wrap up the campaign with a 26-hour continuous YouTube stream. The online broadcast will begin at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT Thursday, at the tail end of their regular daily show, and run through 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT Friday. "We will be attempting to raise an additional $100,000 for a much demanded and much needed main show stage," a TYT rep tells FishbowlNY. (At press time, the Indiegogo campaign is at $281,582.) "Ideally, the new facility will have two stages running simultaneously and allow other TYT Network programs to make use of the second stage." "Every single TYT host and contributor will participate in the Thursday-Friday live stream. This means donor shout-outs, personal stories, drinking games, trivia contests, mixology contests and more. Fans will interact through social media and by calling in. You’ll see TYT in their new, still-under-construction digs and get a behind-the-scenes look at life at TYT." There have been many remarkable Kickstarter and Indiegogo success stories. In the case of The Young Turks, one of the most colorful donor stories involves the aforementioned Mackinlay, a City Councillor in Trail, British Columbia and small business operator. "Sean manages Trail's Canadian 2 For 1 Pizza restaurant," the TYT rep explains. "He's a huge fan, with Canada ranking second behind the U.S. in The Young Turks viewership." "He bought a large flat screen TV for the store so he could watch the show and turn his colleagues and customers into fans. To help raise the $5,000, he created his own flyers supporting the campaign and attached them to pizzas." The camera purchased by Mackinlay and co. will bear the name "241 Crew." Additionally, as a thank you to the B.C. group for their supreme efforts, TYT will support a meet-up at the Trail 2 For 1 Pizza location on January 13. Also, since Uygur and TYT partners Steven Oh and Dave Koller all attended the same New Jersey high school, the geographical provenance of conference-room patron Perillo is also extra special. As an added bonus, there's a rich political angle to this tour company operator's background. Explains Perillio: "We had Richard Nixon as a tenant in our building from 1990 until he died. So I’ve met every Republican from Pat Buchanan to Henry Kissinger to Ronald Reagan. Nixon was extremely shy in person, but would totally open up if even a small crowd formed."

Fishbowl

The Young Turks Hit Indiegogo Home Stretch

Richard Horgan

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Richard Horgan