ABS-CBN Pulls Pinoy Dream Academy Clips Off YouTube

The big media companies shouldn’t worry that people will post their copyrighted material on YouTube. They should worry that people will post their own stuff on YouTube, and audiences will watch that instead.
— Paul Graham.

Ailing Philippine TV network ABS-CBN aggravates its problems by having clips from their show Pinoy Dream Academy pulled off YouTube. This paranoia reflects an ignorant fear of social media from an offline media outlet that can’t diversify. It’s a spectacularly dumb move for four glaringly obvious reasons.

First, they’re being completely indiscriminate. They’re having clips pulled off just because they contain the words Pinoy Dream Academy in the title, even if they don’t contain a shred of material from the show. Way to kill off your completely non-infringing free viral marketing, guys. Some intern probably just conducted a search and sent out a form letter without watching the videos. For that alone, somebody needs to get fired — but oh, there’s more.

Second, they’re killing their only channel to a psychographic that show can’t otherwise reach. Do they honestly believe the average YouTuber would watch some small third-world country’s poor copy of the bastard child of American Idol and Big Brother if it didn’t pop up in their YouTube recommendations, or if it wasn’t embedded in some other YouTuber’s blog they read? I wouldn’t even have heard of this Pinoy Dream Academy garbage if it didn’t appear on YouTube.

Third, they’re ignoring history. CBS has already proven that YouTube exposure increases TV viewership.

Fourth, they’re in love with their own flawed online strategy. Their B2C subscription video site, ABS-CBNnow, is crap — but it’s the simple one-channel command-and-control passive-consumer kind of crap they can comprehend. They’ve actually given me free credits to try the damn thing, and I still wouldn’t waste my time on it.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not upset over their mistake. In fact, I’m quite happy to watch ABS-CBN dig its own grave. It’s overdue karma for the seventy-four innocents they killed in February. Big slow dinosaurs need to die off for small fast mammals to take over.

In fact, the whole Pinoy Dream Academy concept — playing up to a TV network for a shot at becoming their smiling little bitch, packaging it as a dream worthy of an academy — is something I don’t want to see on YouTube, or anywhere else. In the age of citizen media, smart content creators make their own opportunities.

(Via Jepoy.)

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Comments

42 Comments (with 1 Conversation) on “ABS-CBN Pulls Pinoy Dream Academy Clips Off YouTube”
  1. jenny says:

    should be free to watch pinoytube is it youtube we they want it free to watch abs-cbn free to watch mara-clara minsan lang kita ibigin mutya and agimat. we want it free to watch them,

  2. jenny says:

    plaese dont make everyone upset they want it free to watch in pinoytube free like mara-clara minsan lang kita ibigin mutya and all nice movie in pinoytube should be free in youtube pinoy

  3. jenny says:

    why is it abs-cbn off in youtube thats unfair should be free to watch in youtube pinoy . help us improve to youpinoy fre to watch all kinds thank you

  4. Jean says:

    Please we want to promote more our pinoy youtube , Can we avail it for free? thenks

Reply to Mike Abundo