NewTeeVee Live: Auto-Tune the News to Hook Up With Sony

Michael Gregory, the creator of the YouTube remixing phenom Auto-Tune the News, (if you haven’t seen it, drop what you’re doing and go watch this clip) expects that remixed online videos will eventually lose their current extreme buzzy status and settle down to just another art form (like ventriloquism and yodeling, he joked). But as long as vocoder and Auto-Tune the News is still at the height of hipness, the team and Gregory are going to take advantage of it. At our NewTeeVee Live conference, Gregory said that Auto-Tune the News would be launching a viral video campaign with Sony “very soon.”

While Gregory wouldn’t give too many details about the Sony partnership and the content, he said that it would still include the “absurd irreverent take,” that Auto-Tune the News fans have come to know and love. Sony approached the Auto-Tune crew and asked them to provide their take for Sony content, said Gregory, which he added is a positive contrast to companies that want to work with you but end up “putting you in a box.” The content will also be “interactive,” said Gregory, which he’s particularly excited about.

The idea for the show all started back in September 2008, when Gregory made a musical debate for the presidential campaign using the audio processing software Auto-Tune while he was working as an intern at a music studio. But after making that clip he realized he wanted there to be a way for the debaters to interact. That was when the idea to use current events and news via a remixed song emerged. Shortly afterward, Gregory started distributing content with Barely Political (home of Obama Girl), signed up with Next New Networks for ad sales and partnered with YouTube.

Since then, the videos have caught on like wildfire and have generated praise from the likes of news anchors Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck. Gregory is just happy to have the business side taken care of so he can keep doing things like “Auto-Tune” Barack Obama and play in his family soul band, the Gregory Brothers.