The OTHER video network

By Ian, on October 11th, 2006

Interesting news that Revver is to partner with UK TV company FameTV to air user-created clips on the channel. Viewers will be able to send SMS messages voting for their favourites. As with its advertising, Revver will share the revenue 50–50 with the clips’ creators.

Revver is less well known than YouTube but hosts the videos from Ze Frank, Ask-a-ninja, and (now ‘she’ has outed herself) lonelygirl15.

Sid Yadav comments that the system ought to work, since it compares to the other well-established ‘vote-for-your-favourite’ systems in place:

I see a clear-cut model here: users like the content, they want the owners to be paid AND they want the content to be popular (just like they want their favorite American Idol contestant to win), so why not support them by voting for them?

Over on the FameTV site, there’s more explanation:

On Fame TV, viewers will be able to create their own moments of fame by uploading video clips, pictures and texts via mobile phones and the internet. Broadcasting will take place all year round, 24/7, and be available to Sky customers in the UK and Ireland.
Fame TV aims to broadcast all video submissions live on air within 15 minutes of the user submitting the content. Viewers are invited to send in their own music selection which will play as the backing soundtrack to their clip during broadcast.
The public will have full control over what they see on screen and can vote via SMS for the clips they want to view. If a piece they dont like is playing, they can vote it off screen in a matter of seconds and choose the next clip to air.
Each viewer may have their own signature tag that appears on screen every time they interact by SMS or MMS, allowing them to build their own interactive broadcast community and communicate with others while watching.

This sounds like they know what they’re doing. It’s YouTube meets MTV Interactive, integrating successful elements of each service. It also keeps its costs down by getting viewers to do the programming and on a mass scale, broadcast has to be cheaper than bandwidth.

The UK has the highest digital TV penetration of any country in the world (70% of homes), but then again, 70% of them are watching Freeview. Sky ‘only’ has 8mn subscribers. (Ofcom)