C-SPAN/President Score On YouTube

C-SPAN’s video of President Obama on Saturday night’s White House Correspondents dinner has become the cable public affairs net’s most-watched YouTube video of all time at 5,995,000 views and growing at press time, only five days after only two days on the site, according to C-SPAN.The President’s stand-up routine taking aim at journalists, politicians and others, pushed to number two on C-SPAN’s hit parade the president’s 2009 inauguration speech, which took two years to hit 4.7 million. It is also the most-viewed YouTube video since Saturday night (May 1).

The YouTube video of Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers’ routine at the dinner  comes in at #7 all time after only two days as well, dropping Stephen Colbert’s Congressional testimony to #8 all-time.

Arguabely Meyers’ best, and rather prescient jokes, came at C-SPAN’s expense. He referred to the “handful” of people watching at home, and referred to the official net of “wide shots of empty chairs. “C-SPAN is one unpaid electric bill away from being a radio station,” he said. Then came the zinger: “People think bin Laden is hiding in the Hindu Kush[mountains], but did you know that every day from four to five he hosts a show on C-SPAN.” (That joke came only hours before bin Laden’s killing by U.S. forces).

He also used C-SPAN to zing his own net, saying that with the four screens he was projected on at the dinner he now became  “the third highest-rated show on NBC.”