The Young Turks (TYT) essentially invented the concept of news via online streaming video, and with first-of-their-kind shows on YouTube, Roku, Hulu, and Current TV, host Cenk Uygur and company have paved the way for properties like NowThis News to even CBSN (CBS News’ live streaming video news channel).
So when TYT takes to a new platform, people take notice. Earlier this month, they launched a new Facebook-native show called ‘Final Judgment’ in which Uygur delivers his ‘#FinalJudgment on the biggest news story of the day. The one to two-minute-long shows are unscripted and feature no teleprompters, and they are posted each night on Facebook.com/TheYoungTurks and Facebook.com/CenkUygurOfficial.
For more on why TYT chose to launch a show native to Facebook and how it will differ from the team’s shows on other platforms, we spoke with TYT COO Steve Oh:
Lost Remote: From YouTube to even Current, you have a track record of creating news programs on non-traditional networks. Why is Facebook the logical next step?
Oh: Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms on earth with over 1.3 billion active users. Facebook is making a huge push into video. It’s really a no-brainer that we should be right there at the beginning of Facebook’s foray into video. The Young Turks prides itself on being a pioneer of online news, and we were on YouTube from the very beginning back in 2005 and amassed a huge following. Now it’s 10 years later and we see the same opportunity on Facebook.
LR: How will your Facebook show differ from your YouTube show? Do you use the platforms’ analytics to determine show content?
Oh: Discovery and distribution of video content are completely different on Facebook and YouTube. On YouTube, discovery is driven by search, whereas on Facebook it’s largely driven by sharing. On both, there’s a “hub”, our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. These hubs cater to our existing audience. To reach new audience, we depend on search for YouTube and sharing for Facebook. Accordingly, we hope to optimize and differentiate our content for each of the two platforms, although much of the content on the two will be the same for the foreseeable future. We use the platforms’ analytics to determine not just what kind of content works best, but also to see the impact of search terms, video titles, length of video, the time of day that the video is published, etc. The analytics do not determine the subject matter of the content so much as it determines how we distribute the content.
LR: What have you noticed so far about your community of fans on Facebook versus other platforms and networks you have worked with?
Oh: It’s a bit early to make any sweeping, definitive conclusions, but so far our community of fans on Facebook seem to be incredibly engaged in the content. When they share our content, they are sharing with their well-defined circle of friends, so they serve as strong advocates of our content. We’ve noticed that as our Facebook presence has grown, it has increased our YouTube traffic as well. There hasn’t been any degradation or cannibalization of our YouTube traffic whatsoever.