Tribune puts Uncle Jay on its Web sites
Tribune Interactive will air YouTube favorite, “Uncle Jay
Explains the News,” on its Web sites, the company said Friday.
The three-minute video appears new every Monday morning and
features an older gentleman, Uncle Jay, facetiously explaining the news of the
week, tongue mostly lodged in cheek. Jay started the tradition on a Cleveland
TV station back in the 1990s, winning an Emmy for his “News Word of the Week,”
newscast. He then began giving the world his view of it in 2007, and in 2008
his “Singing Year in Review,” hit number-one on YouTube with more than eight
million viewers.
The program is available at www.unclejayexplainsthenews.com,
on YouTube.com and on the Web sites of
Tribune’s eight newspapers and 23 TV stations.
Tribune’s had its eye on Jay for a while now. When I
was reporting my story on the state of syndication, Tribune SVP of
Programming and Entertainment Sean Compton pointed out the show saying: “This
guy does it in his living room with a Handycam and Adobe software. It gets more
hits than The CW had primetime viewers last night. The [TV] business needs to
stop and think and say, ‘What can we do together to create better
efficiencies?’”
Content producers and distributors would love to see the
Internet throw off some huge, lucrative talent. It’s an incredibly inexpensive
way to do it – as opposed to mounting an expensive primetime vehicle or daytime
talk show – and projects arrive pre-branded at TV companies.
Stephen commented:
I just recently discovered "Uncle Jay Explains the News". I'm happy to see that Tribune Interactive has picked up this very entertaining content.
