15 Minutes of Fame: Then and Now
How to Get FAMOUS!!
These days, it seems as though everybody’s trying to get their moment in the spotlight, and honestly a lot of people do nowadays. Think about it: viral videos, memes, and plenty of other things seem to pop up out of nowhere. In the entertainment industry, a classic example of people getting those 15 minutes is “America’s Funniest Home Videos”. The question is: How does this show compete with its newer, online competition like YouTube and Vine?
For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, here is the rundown: America’s Funniest Home Videos is ABC’s famous clip show, which features hilarious home videos sent in from people across the country. Since AFV’s inception, newer ways of watching clips of people get kicked in the crotch (excuse my French) have sprung up, such as YouTube and Vine.
Yeah, I know, AFV is still actually around. I am as surprised as you, dear reader. What kind of a world do we live in where we have lost Vine but AFV is still thriving? The answer may shock you!
The first thing that I noticed when I started looking into this question was that AFV is very well-established. In fact, looking at the show’s website, I learned that AFV is “ABC’s longest-running prime time television show.” It’s on its 28th season!! At this point, this show is correct that it is “an iconic part of American pop culture,” like it says on its site, “as evidenced by its entry into the Smithsonian’s permanent entertainment collection.” AFV has been around for quite a while, which helps to explain why it is still thriving.
In contrast, YouTube has been around for less than half as long as AFV, (YouTube turned 13 back in April,) and Vine is even younger compared to that! (Vine was originally launched back in January of 2013, and it “died” in January 2017, one week before its 4th anniversary.) Even after Vine went down, “Vine Compilations” still thrived on YouTube, giving Vine a memorable legacy.
Back to AFV, another piece of important information that I found was from Stephen Battaglio, who wrote an L.A. Times article titled Even in the age of YouTube, ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ is still an ABC hit. In the article, Battaglio brings up an interesting statistic, saying “an average of 5.5 million people tuned in each week to watch “AFV” during the 2016–17 TV season.” That is some very respectable viewership.
Vine got beat by competition from Snapchat and Instagram, leading to the end of Vine, along with many factors (or at least as far as I understand). YouTube is still around, and it is still the biggest video platform online, but it hasn’t made AFV obsolete.
Going into this, I had not realized that AFV was still doing so well for itself. I expected the competition from things like YouTube and Vine must have meant trouble for the show, but that was not the case. Sure, AFV is not as big as it used to be, before its online competitors blew up in popularity.
Here are the sources I looked at while writing this!