Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at 8:48 AM PT

 

BlogTV Wins YouTube Stars to Make a Web TV Network

BlogTV is the closest thing to broadcast television on the web. Each day, the site has prime-time viewing hours — evenings, East Coast time — when its traffic balloons from 2,000 concurrent users to tens of thousands. And its live shows are produced by a network of stars who have established audiences that follow them where we go.

But here’s where it gets webby. BlogTV’s content creators are YouTube stars (read: not actually that big), which helps to keep costs associated with bandwidth spikes and international streaming — common assets of other live streamers that emphasize event streaming (e.g. Ustream) and sports (e.g. Justin.tv) — down. The site has a network of vigilant moderators it uses to keep the content advertiser-friendly and clean of copyright and other concerns. And of course, BlogTV is unlike any traditional broadcaster in that it doesn’t have anything to do with producing its content; everything is made by users.

BlogTV is based in Israel, though it’s focused on the U.S. market and fully 80 percent of its viewers are North American. The site originally went live in July 2007 and for a time was yet another video + social network + live broadcasting + mobile + kitchen sink provider. But since May, BlogTV has defined itself as the live-streaming provider of choice for YouTube stars; it has nearly every YouTube top 100 most-subscribed user who’s not a company. How? By paying them.

It’s not much, says BlogTV CEO Guy Eliav, but the promise of revenue-sharing got these stars through the door and then promoting the site to other users. “A good broadcaster can make a few thousands dollars per month…It will not make them rich.” The strategy seems to be working, if on a small scale; the site hit 25,000 unique broadcasters in November, according to Eliav.

YouTube is a great place to build an audience, but it’s hard to use the site’s existing tools to connect with your loyal fans in a way that’s more meaningful than you give to the random passerbys and the haters in the comments. Michael Buckley of What the Buck, who broadcasts twice weekly on BlogTV, told us it’s “the highlight of my week.” He joined BlogTV this spring “because they made me the best offer of any of the live-streaming sites and my viewers really enjoy it over there.” He said now many of his viewers have their own shows, too. Other big BlogTV users include CharlieIsSoCoolLike (an 18-year-old British videoblogger who is actually the site’s most popular star of all time), Obama Girl and HappySlip.

Because BlogTV is part of a publicly traded company, Israeli web portal Tapuz, its financials are public. Tech blogger Kfir Pravda recently translated Tapuz’s latest earnings report from Hebrew; according to him, Tapuz reported that BlogTV lost $1.4 million in the first three quarters of 2008. Pravda goes on to quote a Tapuz exec as saying the company is pulling back financial support for the site in order to bring losses from the beginning of the year into check.

Eliav confirmed the raw numbers, but maintained that another factor in Tapuz and BlogTV’s improved financials is that the live video site “started kicking in revenues a few months ago.” He maintained that $155,000 is an extremely low monthly burn rate for a live-streaming startup, which is undoubtedly true. But he also said that next month the site will extend its revenue-sharing program to all its users, which will take a chunk out of any potential profits going forward.

So can a network of YouTube stars live-broadcasting to their most dedicated fans be a successful business? I doubt it. The only advantage BlogTV really has over its competitors is if it can stay in business longer by saving on expenses and using its moderation system to not get tainted by tragic events like the Justin.tv live-streamed suicide. But I think rewarding loyal fans is one of the Internet’s biggest opportunities. BlogTV is pioneering something that will soon be commonplace.

See also: BlogTV CEO Leaves Company

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Comments & Trackbacks

  1. Hi Liz, thanks for the link.
    Short clarification – the Tapuz Exec is Dan Chen, company CEO. Also, he later asked to note that they did not decide upon a definite timeline for cutting the support for BlogTV.
    The interesting question is if live streaming UGC has financial merit. Mogulus recently announced its premium service, and ustream are focusing on event based content, that usually has higher quality video. This is a huge challenge for BlogTV which I hope they will face successfully.

    Kfir Pravda on December 9th, 2008 at 9:01 am - Permalink

  2. I’m pretty sure BlogTV is paying these youtubers as my friend was offered.

    Which would explain their 1.4 million loss.

    And their millions of ads everywhere….jeez

    Adam Kline on December 9th, 2008 at 10:27 am - Permalink

  3. BlogTV is horrible. Next.

    Marc Davis on December 9th, 2008 at 10:28 am - Permalink

  4. Question: at BlogTV, are the episodes archived? If it’s live streaming, do people have any interest in watching old episodes time-shifted?

    It would be funny if we moan when NBC doesn’t put content online, but then the live-streams weren’t archived, wouldn’t it? Plus, the live-streamers are potentially losing a revenue oppty on previously produced content.

    Brian on December 9th, 2008 at 10:41 am - Permalink

  5. and after all this blah nonsense Stickam is still the number one in streaming.

    Stickam on December 9th, 2008 at 10:43 am - Permalink

  6. @ Brian — yes, the episodes are archived, it looks like in 10-minute chunks. I don’t know what the demand for archived materials is but it didn’t look like very much.

    @ Adam — you’re right, they say flat-out that they are paying YouTubers.

    Liz Gannes on December 9th, 2008 at 11:05 am - Permalink

  7. It looks pretty obvious who is the live streaming leader:

    http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ustream.tv+blogtv.com+justin.tv/?metric=uv

    Its not Blog..

    Kelly Anderson on December 9th, 2008 at 12:12 pm - Permalink

  8. The truth is that the programming on these live sites is awful. BlogTV spends a lot of time and energy promoting these “YouTube” stars. Michael Buckley appears to be the only real star and broadcaster with any talent out of YouTube.

    BlogTV consists of people sitting in front of a camera and answering questions. That’s it. None of these people are really that interesting, so the only real draw to the site is for the broadcaster.

    People like SXEPhil get a lot of views over at YouTube – well only because he is placed on the front page of YouTube – but cannot seem to bring viewers over to BlogTV. Other like Shaycarl and Charles Trippy are not funny.

    Hats off to the musicians. Enough with the guy who wants to become President in 2012 and the guy who thinks he is a reporter for CNN.

    Bob Rogers on December 9th, 2008 at 6:37 pm - Permalink

  9. Wow you are all pretty hard on blogTV. They have the best streaming quality of the UGC sites and they do also archive. Consider the quality that they have been able to generate without even the smallest fraction of the resources that their competition has.

    It seems to me that Kfir Pravda has it out for the blogTV company since his remarks are rather childish and scathing. Did anyone check his translations? Is he the only one who reported what was happening in Israel?

    Ellen on December 9th, 2008 at 10:52 pm - Permalink

  10. [...] AICC Member BlogTV Wins YouTube Stars to Make a Web TV Network BlogTV Wins YouTube Stars to Make a Web TV Network [...]

    AICC Member BlogTV Wins YouTube Stars to Make a Web TV Network « American-Israel Chamber of Commerce, SE on December 10th, 2008 at 6:20 am - Permalink

  11. this will probally be cut but i just want to say yeah glorify all the you tubers but the real stars are the people NOT from you tube but who origionated from blog tv. these are the stars that people interact with and have fun with. the you tubers are her for one purpose only to promote you tube and use blog tv to make the videos for you tube they ignore the chat, start shows 5-6 hours early to fill the room and to basically waste our time.

    Dan Taylor on December 10th, 2008 at 9:27 am - Permalink

  12. [...] who got in early will still be making a much better salary (“a few thousand dollars per month” says blogTV CEO, Guy Eliav), it is good to see new start-ups not ignoring their less-viewed [...]

    blogTV is now Sharing Ad Revenue » Viral Video Wannabe on December 17th, 2008 at 4:33 am - Permalink

  13. [...] CEO Leaves Company Just two weeks after we profiled his live video startup, BlogTV CEO Guy Eliav has left for greener pastures. Eliav, who had worked for more than nine years [...]

    BlogTV CEO Leaves Company « NewTeeVee on December 24th, 2008 at 11:42 am - Permalink

  14. i got alot to say about this crap that they call an article. 1st it wasent july 2007 2ndly blog needs to pay people cause they have screwed themselevs so bad out of users they have not only pushed alot of old timer blogtv.ca users away but some others when they went to to 16 to begin with then they went to 13 which was damm sick on their part they opened their doors to pedo’s not that people dont lie about their age . also alot of .com broadcasters did not want youtubers here cause of them being ignorant stay on ur own site . us that came from .ca we knew how to have content unlike alot of this crap u see on now we were the real deal and blog needs to stop lieing

    tim mcgee on December 29th, 2008 at 12:47 am - Permalink

  15. Well I must say this is one heck of an article. I’m not sure who even cares about YouBoobers being on blogtv, but I know that alot of veteran broadcasters have felt the burn and took their cams and mics elsewhere. Blog used to be a social community with a feeling of friendship, now its $$$$$$$ Yes I realize you need money to run a business and they need these ads smack dab i the middle of peoples broadcasts but really where do you see Blogtv in 2 years? These Youboobers will find better offers eventually, or go on to bigger better things and leave blog in the dust. If they are going to pay Youtubers why not also pay the other broadcasters who actually work hard on bringing content and entertainment for FREE to blog,, sleep on that one.

    MarthaBrewart on December 29th, 2008 at 12:55 am - Permalink

  16. [...] Youtube, blogTV’s live platform has become the future for Youtube stars. Read her article here. Share and [...]

    BlogTV. The future of entertainment. | Late Night with CptStoner on January 2nd, 2009 at 6:16 pm - Permalink

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