Man City fan sites on YouTube

[Bilboblue]

Naturally this is a topic really, really close to me, given I've been heavily involved with two of the channels on here. I was involved heavily with BMRTV for a year and I've ran my own personal channel for over a year too (esteemed kompany)...and @Damocles is spot on with a large part of that post and I want to genuinely thank him for how supportive he's been to me personally when I tried to get my channel going. He actually convinced me to push Patreon and it's been a genuine life changer for me as I can viably, without feel like i'm neglecting all friends and family, put time and effort into videos knowing that it will actually be worthwhile financially - and as much as people don't like to accept that some value the financial support... well, how many people work for hours, sometimes every day, get criticism for it often, just to create stuff to put out all for free? Not many. It makes it a lot easier from my side and it keeps me going. There's been a few times when i've nearly packed it in but I keep trying and the patreon has helped me drive onwards when I'm genuinely exhausted and don't feel like putting 5 hours on my weekend into editing a video. Basically - it supports you and keeps you going. It pays for your tickets to games too when sometimes i'd give it a miss cos i couldn't afford it. Life-changer.

I'm off the opinion that City struggle on Youtube for a few reasons:

1) City smother independent voices - they really do. To the extent of taking content ideas (they tried vlogs almost identical in tone to many fan channels, but they were sanitised so maybe didn't work as well) and not embracing fan culture like say Arsenal do. Laugh at AFTV all you want, but Arsenal regularly invite Arsenal fans onto their content to discuss things!
2) Fanbase is genuinely smaller. A lot smaller than most of our rivals. It is. You only have to look at the size of City Watch on Twitter as a barometer. A brilliantly run, highly informative news aggregator, and it's *only* at 130k on Twitter. That's the biggest City account by an absolute landslide. There are numerous United accounts well in excess of 200k, and they're largely shite. Nowhere near as polished and nowhere near as interesting. It's just there's so many fucking United fans. There really are - internationally mainly. City will get there, by our global audience is absolutely tiny comparatively. You can see it by the size of things like that. City Watch, if a United one, would have well over 500k. Easy. Just how it is.
3) We're really successful. And fans of other clubs hate us more than ever (money bitterness etc), meaning they're literally shun us cos it's quite hard to watch fans of your rivals gush praise. Look at AFTV - huge cos of schadenfreude. We're not successful enough to gain any fringe fans yet though. I think it'll be ten years before we see a whole new generation of City fans come to City. Most have already nailed their masts to some colours due to the Sky TV boom in the 90s/00s. Their kids are gonna follow their parents too, so we're fighting for scraps as there isn't really any major unexplored territories in terms of new fanbases potentially.
4) Cynicism - I think Mancs are pretty suspicious of new media to an extent. Our fanbase is a fair bit older than some i'd argue. Lots of old skool blues who really, really hate young-ish lads like me who make videos. Don't get me started on vlogs haha. The stick I've had for that....so I think there's resistance towards it all which means many shun it off the bat. And given our smaller fanbase, it means we immediately cut half of the audience off. It is how it is. So be it. If you look at London based teams I think they're a bit more open to new media stuff. It's London - not really a surprise.

There's probs more but none spring to mind. I sometimes think there won't ever be a genuinely 'big' Manchester City fan channel, unless some mad 'character' comes along that is essentially cut from the same cloth as The True Geordie, or if City totally collapse and someone gets a bunch of nutters to go on relatively contrived rants to draw in views. I'm not an exceptionally charismatic bloke. If I was a comedy genius or some passionate ranting bloke, I'd be bigger. I'm aware of this. I'm just a normal lad, relatively amiable, comfortable in camera and tech savvy. So I've done alright cos I've jumped into a gap that's there. One day there may be someone who is ten times more charismatic and entertaining who draws fans from every age group and other teams too. Walter from Blue Moon Rising is a good example, but that times ten, and probs better with digital marketing haha.

I don't think it's impossible to build a community though and I do think we don't think work together enough as @Damocles said. Put it this way, City Watch won't share my content. Never gonna happen. I'm technically a rival, I guess. They would if I worked for them, which I guess is relatively fair enough, but it's hard for me to find the time to run this channel and also contribute regularly to them. Free time is a precious commodity. The official account wouldn't even go near my content, cos I'm a rival technically. Mad, I know....If City did push people towards me it'd be a life-changing moment for my channel over night. But they won't.

There's a few things in there that make me genuinely sad. Especially the bit about City trying to smother independent schemes, there is absolutely no need for that. Citywatch don't need to be mardarses too, I follow both, and I would still do that if you supported each other.

Not sure you are right on the age thing, I am nearing 50, and I am open to all different types of media, as long as it gives me what I want. I certainly haven't heard any older lads saying they hate what you do?

I enjoy most of your videos, Steven, and I hope you can keep them going, gives a different twist on things and presents it more from the fans view.

Cheesy's vlogs are great, but you and him are the only ones I find time for with any regularity and I do chip in a bit for the patreon when I am able to. Was good to see you at Wembley (on the concourse pre-game), and let's have a few more shots of the lovely Nicola ;o) haha!

Good luck.

 

[twosips]

There's a few things in there that make me genuinely sad. Especially the bit about City trying to smother independent schemes, there is absolutely no need for that. Citywatch don't need to be mardarses too, I follow both, and I would still do that if you supported each other.

Not sure you are right on the age thing, I am nearing 50, and I am open to all different types of media, as long as it gives me what I want. I certainly haven't heard any older lads saying they hate what you do?

I enjoy most of your videos, Steven, and I hope you can keep them going, gives a different twist on things and presents it more from the fans view.

Cheesy's vlogs are great, but you and him are the only ones I find time for with any regularity and I do chip in a bit for the patreon when I am able to. Was good to see you at Wembley (on the concourse pre-game), and let's have a few more shots of the lovely Nicola ;o) haha!

Good luck.

First bit defo happens sadly! City Watch don't hate me or owt, and I know lots of them regularly. They just run a tight ship and basically look after themselves. Shame, but that's how they run it.

The age thing - of course there are exceptions, but I definitely got a lot more cynicism from a certain group and I'd say they're in the older bracket. People like yourself though do watch too, so cheers mate! Appreciate that loads. I have just looked at my stat too, and 75% of my views come from people younger than 34, so lots of the older generation aren't as interested in it, which I guess makes sense.

Thanks for the support though man. I told Nicola and she loved that haha

 

[UUJblue]

First bit defo happens sadly! City Watch don't hate me or owt, and I know lots of them regularly. They just run a tight ship and basically look after themselves. Shame, but that's how they run it.

The age thing - of course there are exceptions, but I definitely got a lot more cynicism from a certain group and I'd say they're in the older bracket. People like yourself though do watch too, so cheers mate! Appreciate that loads. I have just looked at my stat too, and 75% of my views come from people younger than 34, so lots of the older generation aren't as interested in it, which I guess makes sense.

Thanks for the support though man. I told Nicola and she loved that haha

Who or what runs citywatch? Followed it for years but never knew who was behind it? I presume their podcasts are relativity new as I only started noticing them.

 

[Onlymcfc]

Who or what runs citywatch? Followed it for years but never knew who was behind it? I presume their podcasts are relativity new as I only started noticing them.

Fella called Stu started it, really nice bloke and a season ticket holder

 

[Metalartin]

I know this would be no consolation to those striving to make a living in the social media space around City but I'm not sure subscriber counts for social media platforms are a rock solid indicator of worldwide interest in the club itself. There's a lot of people who either don't use twitter(or have no account) and the likes at all or don't use it for sport. Do we really know online trends for PL fans in other countries that well? Do they use twitter as much for PL news in South America for example or China? Are overseas fans that fanatical about one club that they would follow every piece of information as much as a UK football fan seems to or do a lot of them watch several teams from different leagues and split their time between them? I'm not presuming to know any of this I might add but I've yet to see any solid information on the differences. Also while there's no denying they seem to have far more twitter subscribers across the board it could also be that some of these rags subscribed to those feeds donkeys years ago(since they probably started years before City's rise to prominence) and they very rarely visit because the content is crap and trends have changed since they first subscribed.

All I know is I go on CityWatch to catch up a lot but I don't have an account and many others use it the same way and wont be counted in these figures. Page views(unique visitors to a website/twitter feed/channel etc) might be a different story, but even if that wasn't the case if TV broadcasting views are anything to go by City are making big strides winning people over in recent years in just about every continent... it's a matter of time before the other pieces fall in line with that really. As someone already said the quality of content already seems higher and in many ways the City side of things is fresher, sometimes leading the way... if you build it they will come.

 

[Leto]

Funny to watch fans of other clubs make absolute fools of themselves though.

To be fair, there is never going to be anyone as pathetic as that plastic prick anywhere else other than united. He sums them up perfectly.

 

[Leto]

It's a piece of piss this stuff.

Step 1. Get someone to do an angry rant in a cartoon accent like Andy Tate and Blud Fam and co.
Step 2. Profit.

 

[The perfect fumble]

It's a piece of piss this stuff.

Step 1. Get someone to do an angry rant in a cartoon accent like Andy Tate and Blud Fam and co.
Step 2. Profit.

That's how arsenal Fan TV makes its money, but that channel is not typical of what's out there, it is the exception not the rule.

 

[TheBlueDune]

This is an issue close to my heart and something I've been trying to get involved in changing for a number of years.

Here's the simple truth: City fans don't have enough media outlets because the club will attempt to invade the fan space with any good ideas then refuse to promote them, City fans are generationally lost in the age group whereby many of them are too young to have money to spare or too old to support the notion of crowdfunding, and there's a stigma in the City community that anybody who tries to make money out of their content is "selling out" or lesser or "cringeworthy".

I'm lucky in that I have had a good relationship with the owners of many of the major City fan projects out there as I'm always willing to throw them some help with the technical end and have a general chinwag. Me and Ste used to bounce ideas off each other regularly (and I'm proud to say I was one of his earliest Patreons), obviously me and Ric have worked closely on Bluemoon for a decade, I've contributed and had chance to speak to Stu on City Watch and I helped Ahsan set up and get his 93:20 project off the ground. All these guys are successful to a degree in market position because they understand how to run digital projects. Cheesy I don't know but he sort of skipped ahead a bit because he had a pre-existing audience from his BBC work.

I've contributed to more things that didn't work than did unfortunately but this is the nature of the beast. Many people see these projects as fiefdoms for them to run, that they are all in competition with each other and "the other guy" is trying to "steal their business" or whatever. They don't understand that Bluemoon and 93:20, to pick two examples, are not in competition which each other and don't have 100% of the same audience. As I'm pretty highly involved with both and think I probably have a good feel of their respective communities so I can tell you that their communities are different from each other, and I'd be surprised if they share 50% of their audience. This means that on Bluemoon there are 50% of people who are right in the target audience for 93:20, that being City fans who enjoy exchanging opinions about events in the City Universe, and 50% of people who could be big parts of this community who aren't and could bring fresh voices in. It makes much more sense to work with and help each other out as projects than it does to fight and bicker. Both Ric and Ahsan understand this, in fact it was Ric who taught me this about 10 years ago.

We as a large community are currently in the stage whereby we are starting to understand that digital projects are financially viable. You need to work you fucking bollocks off and have a unique perspective or selling point, but we're learning that the City fanbase will support things that they value and want to see continue to exist. You'd be shocked at how relatively new that concept is in our community - one or two years old, and the closure of BMRisingTV due to its funding being pulled really shook a lot of confidence and faith that content creators could exist and thrive by focusing on City.

There's a space in the City community for a BMRisingTV like channel but nobody has really grabbed the concept by the throat and gone for it. We need to create more employers in the City fanbase - more people who can chuck £20 at a young student looking to break into digital media or to support a partial living wage for somebody. And we can't get people to create employment so more young content creators see no financial future in this marketplace so move onto other stuff and we never get any new content creators. The ones we have at the moment are trailblazing like the old fanzine authors did, wondering if they could make this work out for them financially. It's much easier to start a new project when you have examples of successful ones in the same space that can cross promote you, that can be held as an example of funding models, that can show the viability of the medium. Getting more financially successful projects out there, especially in the crowd funding model, should be an extreme priority for anybody who loves this community and wants to see it prosper.

Need a different model than currently in place. We look at Cheesy Vlogs, Esteemed Kompany, et al and think of them as channels on YouTube. What would be better would be to see them as programmes or episodes on a City Fans TV channel.
You'd tune in (click) to CFTV and on offer would be this week's Cheesy Vlog and EK musings amongst other programmes. Mods in the manner of BM act as gate keepers to stop tons of crap being added and diluting the value. It would have to be a two way street though, otherwise EK could play the "FU" card and publish elsewhere and then we're back to square one.
It would have to be that quality fan content would only be available on CFTV.
Same idea as TV companies do with regular programmes (Corrie same time/days) and also available on catch up for a limited time. Could be that after a month they are only available in an archive library site.
Funded by ads ideally. Some ads are general for the whole channel and then some specific for the programme, that way some funds go to the "producer" such as Cheesy who spends or invests as he sees fit - better sound equipment - better programme - more viewers - more ads - more funds and so on.
It's how YouTube works except they take most/all of the ad money. Except bimbo vlogs about makeup or handbags.

 

[Deleted member 81382]

This is awkward.