I had a conversation with someone at work a while ago and he asked me about evidence for the loss of efficacy in Mass Media. I recently found an interesting example that, while not at all scientific, is certainly indicative of that point.

There is a You Tube video that has been making the rounds for a couple of months now called the Evolution of Dance. It is a funny six minutes from a very talented dancer/comedian and worth a watch in it’s own right.

Last night, I showed it to my wife and saw that it is currently sitting just shy of 29 million downloads.

For context the top rated show in the US for the week of July 3-9 was America’s Got Talent which received 10.2 million viewers. (Source: Jam ShowBiz)

This same week marked the lowest viewership of the big four networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX) averaging only 20.8 million viewers. The week of Memorial Day is traditionally the worst TV week of the year, but this year marked the lowest rating for that week in recorded history.

Now because of the nature of these two different types of media I realize that this is by no means a fair “apples to apples” comparison, particularly since the Evolution of Dance has been available since April. However the fact that User Generated Content can even be considered within the same breath as the most mass of the mass media, should be seen as a harbinger of things to come.

This entry was posted on July 17, 2006 at 10:42 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Advertising Funny Issues Media Online Random Trends Viral by dwalker 1 Comment