Tag Archives: YouTube

Are rumours of the demise of AFTV true?

1 Reply

The internet is awash with talk about AFTV’s demise.

In the last week and a bit, at least 3 contributors have taken to social media to announce they will no longer be appearing on the toxic YouTube channel. This has led to questions around what is happening, and talk of dwindling revenues and sponsors walking away. But what is actually happening?

Follow the money

AFTV’s bread and butter is its post-match interviews. They did not care who appeared on camera after a match or their background. Wife beaters, racists and fellas that have now had to flee the country were not only given a platform, but ended up being paid to appear due to their viewing figures.

For those who run the channel, it was all about the hits. They did not care about the background of those appearing or the damage they were doing to Arsenal. It was all about the money. And that money drives decisions.

The “podcast shuffle”

The channel was built on the back of those toxic rants of the mid-00s, which fueled a lot of anger, animosity and division at Arsenal.

As time went on and AFTV became more of a broadcasting business rather than just a place for fans to have their say post-match, the more popular contributors were offered an opportunity to participate in podcasts, with some even getting their own “shows”.

It was a simple business model.

Take those that are popular post-game at the weekend and give them more airtime with a mid-week show, to fill the gap between games. It was an attempt to take the channel away from being just about post-match rants and to create a network of creators sharing their views and further driving revenue.

But anyone who has worked or been involved in podcast networks will know, they often have a yearly shuffle.

The networks invest in their contributors. Pay them to appear and provide them with the infrastructure needed to put on a professional show – whether it be recording equipment, studio space or access to editors and graphic designers. From here, everyone profits.

But then, if a podcast does not take off as expected, or viewing numbers dwindle, the networks are in a position where they are investing more into the content than it is making.

For years, YouTube’s average advertising payout is estimated to be $1 for every 1,000 views. That means when a video is being watched 100,000 times, it will make $1,000. Or about £750.

Now, if you are putting on a weekly show, paying 4 contributors, providing studio space, studio space and paying editors and graphic designers, £750 does not go very far. And how long will sponsors such as William Hill be willing to pay for such a small reach? And the result will be with poor viewership and no external sponsorship funding, you will be dropped.

Some networks may recycle their contributors into other shows, and others may end ties completely. And as they are not employees but usually self-employed contractors, contracting out their services to the network, then it is much easier to break the contract in comparison to if they were PAYE.

And this is probably where AFTV are at right now, with so many departing – and it is important to note that those leaving are not just those who spew toxicity or have decided to use the channel to make political points.

Those shows that were not very successful are being cancelled, and investment will go into others, either by paying more for popular shows or by pushing new faces.

Contributors own channels

So you can on AFTV because you want a bit of attention and like the idea of becoming a YouTuber. After 6 months of grafting in the wind, rain and snow outside the Emirates, you get invited to contribute occasionally on existing shows. Your popularity continues to rise, and you end up with your own show. But it is only once a week.

In the meantime, you have also been appearing on other podcasts. After all, you are not an employee of AFTV and they are not blocking you from contributing elsewhere. Another 6 months go by and you decide to take the plunge and set up your own YouTube channel and go “full time”.

A couple of days a week you are making yourself look a div outside the Emirates stadium. Another couple of days a week you are sitting in the AFTV studio recording content for them. And on top of that you are doing your own show on your own channel. Maybe a live or two. On top of this you might appear on others shows to further boost your bank balance.

You are probably only getting a couple of hundred quid each time you appear on either AFTV, another show, or through advertising revenue from your own show. But if you are getting that daily, thats a grand a week. £52k a year. Not bad if you delivered Percy Pigs to M&S or sold double glazing on a commission-only content.

But then you become frustrated. you are doing all this work for AFTV but only getting a share of the profits, or a flat fee way below what you might generate. So you decide to reduce your availability to them and spend more time on your own channel. Push out more content where money goes straight into your pocket.

That creates friction between yourself and AFTV, with those who run AFTV then feeling like you are just using the huge platform to promote yourself. They either ask you to stop doing as much on your own channel, or you make the decision to do less. The result of the friction is you no longer appear on AFTV, and as a consequence, they will not longer video your post-match rants after the game.

You make the decision to go alone. Cut the ties with AFTV. We have seen a couple go down this route before with varied success. Some still shout and scream down the camera. Others have gone back to their boring accounting jobs.

Is AFTV on the demise?

It is too early to say if this is the end of AFTV.

With around 90m views in the last 6 months, the network would have brought in around $90k from YouTube advertising revenue. Or around £67k. This is the level the channel has consistently been at for the last few years.

It might be that sponsors and external advertisers have pulled the plug, no longer willing their brand to be associated with something so toxic. Or, likewise, it might be that the owners have decided to consolidate the channel, produce less content without

The Pareto principle is that roughly 80% of outcomes or results come from 20% of causes or inputs. If that is the same with AFTV, the owners could cut 80% of content and only see a 20% drop in revenue.

That 80% in content reduction could lead to huge cost reductions without impacting revenue too much, and in turn increasing profit.

To see how the impact of 3 contributors affects the total channel over the next 6 months will be the test. If they maintain their 90m viewership, the channel would have shown that the brand is bigger than any individual contributor. If the next 6 months show a significant reduction in channel viewership, then the end may be near (although we may just see a complete pull back and the channel return to post-match interviews only).

Keenos

Have Arsenal fans inadvertently become grasses?

2 Replies

We have all been there, at an away game, in the concourse, having a sing and a dance, having a laugh, drinking a beer. Or outside (or in) a pub after a home game, singing our hearts out, playing football (outside of the pins) and enjoying the victory. Or away in Europe, taking over a square in a foreign land, beer in hand, having a sing song.

Next time you are in this situation, look around you. Notice those on the age of the masses. Standing there, not really singing, arm in the air, mobile phone in hand. They are recording you. With the plan to put their recordings on YouTube and Facebook, hoping one of their video go’s viral.

It is a problem that is throughout football. Fans recording other fans. It might seem innocent, those recording certainly do not plan any harm, but there video’s, when going online, entering the public domain, could cause all sorts of trouble.

In the concourses before away games, or the pubs or squares throughout England and Europe, a lot of songs are sung. Some are harmless. Others are a bit naughty. We act the fool. Getting drunk. Riding high on adrenaline and booze. Our morals certainly are reduced.

During the day of a game, you pass under 100’s of CCTV camera’s. On the trains going to the games. Worn by police officers in the pubs before. In the stadium itself. And more recently, body cams on stewards. It seems everyone is trying to achieve one thing. Catch a fan doing something which they should not, so they can issue a banning order.

But now, it is not only the authorities we have to be careful of. It is our fellow fans. With society currently all wanting to be news reporters, whether it is tweeting or video’ing, fans are becoming their own worst enemy when it comes to surveillance. No longer do we have to be wary of the police, stewards or football clubs recording us, we now have to be careful of fellow fans recording us.

I  myself do not like being recorded. I will happily have a sing and dance in the concourse, but as soon as the camera phones come out, I make my way to the side. It is not that I am doing anything wrong, I am very well behaved at games, it is more to do with I do not want my employer stumbling over a video with me in it, or something going too far and clubs deciding to ban anyone who uses the Y word. If you are caught on camera, anything could happen. I would rather enjoy an away day a bit less, then have a consequence cause by a way I might act.

It used to be what happens in football, stays in football, as long as you are not stupid enough to do something which gets caught on CCTV. However, there is now no need for the CCTV, all the police or football clubs have to do is go onto YouTube after a game, scan video’s uploaded by fellow fans, and dish out the bans. A ban could lead you to losing your job. That is how serious it is.

So please, stop inadvertently grassing on your fellow fans. If you want to record on your phone, go to a One Direction concert. Stay away from football.

Keenos

The Arsenal and Me – Micheal’s Story

1 Reply

It’s All Lee Dixon’s Fault.

Love affairs and addictions often happen by chance. Someone or something comes into your life, possibly briefly but its impact is sudden and overwhelming. My addictive love affair with Arsenal is no different. And for that I blame . . . Lee Michael Dixon.

 I discovered Arsenal purely by chance and given the events of my first ever Arsenal match it seems almost surreal. I had been stationed in the US Navy. With my role in the Navy, I split time between London working for Commander-in-Chief US Forces Europe and Allied Forces South based out of Naples Italy. It was the late Eighties, and during that time frame I’d find my exposure to the game I played as a kid taken to new extremes.

During one of my last stays in London, I happened to be friendly with a lot of the lads from the Royal Navy (and some of the lasses as well – that’s another story). One  in particular, Rory, and I had a penchant for hanging out together and enjoying our favorite past time – drinking. One week he found out his brother was sick and wouldn’t be able to go to a football match with him. One they’d planned on going to earlier but for whatever reason they were unable to (at the time I didn’t fully understand what had happened at Hillsborough)

The match he would take me to was none other than the match at Anfield in 1989 – that magical night when “the boys of” Arsenal would put the “men” of Liverpool to the sword and capture their first league title since ‘70-’71. I would later find out that the original timing of this match was postponed from its original date in April because of the Hillsborough tragedy but much like my experience that night I was not aware of that or Arsenal.

Let me tell you, that when it was all said and done and we were journeying home, I had no idea what I had witnessed. All I knew was that it was intense, it was passionate and in my mind , it was the greatest thing I had ever witnessed.

Exposure to the European game was nonexistent growing up. You just didn’t know it. You knew of players like Pele because of the NASL here in the US, but knowing who players were in England for me never really happened,  till that night. And it was that night that I’d really be drawn to the highly effective play of one player in particular. . .

Lee Dixon. I think I was first drawn to Lee because he was the man who put that final goal in motion, and for some reason when I watched it happen, I just felt I was seeing something magical – that could’ve been Rory’s hand grasping my forearm for dear life though. That pass to Smith that eventually found its way to Michael Thomas would be the catalyst for my fascination with Arsenal.

I would leave London that following week and I wouldn’t go back again until after my discharge, but I was hooked. I had to know more and whilst finishing up my service in Napoli (watching Maradona play for them – how’s that for exposure to soccer) I began reading the weekly versions of the UK papers to keep up on Arsenal and of course Lee Dixon.

If only we had the Internet back then!

Once back home in the US information on Arsenal was harder still.  AOL was in it’s infancy and digital sharing of information was sporadic – at best. So my initial keep-up on Arsenal was through the mail from Rory and similarly to my time in Naples, through the weekly UK press (the Express could be had at certain book shops) available here in the US.  But I was a determined young man and I wanted to see them live as often as I could. And with no strings and money from an inheritance, I went as frequently as life would allow.

As I got to know Arsenal during that time, what struck me about Lee Dixon’s play was the almost unassuming way he went about his business. And for me, that is why I liked him. Where I grew up in the US, we like our sports personalities to be blue collar, hard-working, and not flashy – to me Lee Dixon was the epitome of that.  To say Lee didn’t have flash is kind of misleading – let’s say it was subdued flash. He didn’t have the silky skills we swoon over, but he had a dogged determination to win every ball he good. And because as good as he was defensively, the fact he scored 28 goals – some of a wicked variety are often overlookedObviously there is THAT goal against Chelsea. Coming in from the left side and just rifling a shot in the upper corner that any striker would’ve been envious of. Or the goal against George Graham’s Leeds. Both of those stand out as a testament his offensive skills.

Still, though, he was a defender. It’s always easy to take joy in a goal or the flash of a midfielder or striker, but to truly appreciate a player, you must watch those who ply their trade defending. Sometimes there work is non-stop, sometimes it’s non-existent.

Of course back then, defending was a way of life for Arsenal, particularly when Lee was part of that famed back four. The times I did get to see him live or  in a pub here in the US (the Dicken’s Inn in Philadelphia used to be the early spot) I just always felt watching him – he was so easily good at this. He was a fullback who was solid and determined, and while Tony Adams would wear the moniker of Mr. Arsenal (and rightly so), I always thought of Lee as Mr. Dependable.

Of course any discussion of Lee would be incomplete without acknowledging the own goal against Coventry – the best own goal ever according to some. It was something I didn’t see live but was relayed to me the phone almost immediately after the match. Looking at it now through the help of YouTube, it’s not a highlight reel moment unless you are capturing the worst possible moments of a player’s career. But as I watch it and I watch my favorite player wince and grab his head in pain, I feel it too – even now.

My last memory of Lee playing is probably the time I think I knew, as probably did others, that his playing career was in the wane. It was during the 2000-2001 FA Cup Final in Cardiff. I have to admit to crying afterwards (I’m actually cold and heartless really) and coming to terms with Lee’s mortality. Watching Michael Owen, speed by him for the eventual winner was too painful. But it was painful I think, because we don’t ever want to see our heroes stop being who we know they truly are.

I have this propensity for freezing people in time. I still envision my 35 year old younger brother as 9 year old. For me Lee will always be that man who lofted the ball so sweetly to Alan Smith, and with the start of play for that legendary goal, sent me on a journey I haven’t ever come back from.

We are blessed now that Lee has taken his talents to punditry. He is as good there as he was on the pitch. His ability to dissect a game is a testament, to me at least, to his ability to read a game as player. He is insightful, thoughtful and objective.

As I started YouAreMyArsenal and we started to get some recognition, I was asked if I wanted to participate on a Q&A video with the IAMPLAYR application on Facebook. I was curious. Then they told me who was going to be answering our questions, Lee Dixon. Curiosity be damned. It was Lee.

It’s all a little fanboy I know. But I show Lee to my sons and even some of my players (I am a coach now) videos of THAT back four and I tell them – that’s how you defend. And then I show them Lee scoring – and I say good defenders get to score too.

If I was offered the chance to meet Lee Dixon, I would simply say to him – Lee, thank you. You have given me a love affair with a club no one can take away and I am forever grateful.

Michael

Michael is the administrator/blogger for youaremyarsenal.com. You can join his Facebook group here

If you would like to tell your Arsenal story, click here