Hungry Beast: The ABC’s first online breakout hit?
Did you see Hungry Beast’s trailer for Avatar 2 on telly the other week?
Don’t worry if you didn’t. You’re not the odd one out.
Although the ABC1 show does okay among the yoof demo (10th most watched show among 16-39s last night), it doesn’t have a huge audience: according to OzTam, 687,000 metro viewers in total
Yet the clip above has been viewed 1.1m times since it was uploaded to YouTube on March 4.
Its piece on Google, meanwhile, has already picked up more than 300,000 views:
And I suspect that will go on clocking them up too.
But the Avatar spoof feels the more significant moment to me. It’s certainly the first example I can think of where a mainstream Australian show has picked up a bigger online audience than it does for TV. But I bet it’s not the last.
Tim Burrowes
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One of the reasons these two have been such a hit on the youtube view count is they have been picked up by Digg and Reddit (news aggregators).
It also helps that the content is delivered on youtube to start with, as opposed to TV / iView only, as it is easier to get a click off a youtube video from someone O/S than it is to try and navigate through a specific video uploading system.
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The US College Humor website also picked up the Avatar spoof last week, I think.
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The comments on reddit weren’t kind – phrases like “waste of budget” were common. I think Hungry Beast would have more chance of going viral if it invested more in writing than production design and infographics. To wit: the confusing presentation if drug survey results last night.
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I’m in the Hungry Beast demographic and I’m such a fan of the show. Since watching it for the first time on iView, I have made an effort to catch it when it airs on ABC. The show’s graphical treatment of complex information is really impressive. I’ve even had a watercooler moment with the girls in the office where we’ve all mentioned different elements of the show that we liked. Nice one ABC.
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I also saw a ‘What if Lady Gaga wasn’t famous’ bit of theirs linked on The Daily What.
Short-form online video is probably the best way to consume the Hungry Beast, that way you can avoid the gratingly smug hosts and overly earnest “serious business.”
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My partner is a fan and I saw my first ep the other night. The stats regarding the Catholic Church & peadophilia were compelling and the graphics used made it intersteing to sit through 3 mins of talk. I agree Heather, the hosts have to go. Their whole “I’m sooo alternative” schtik is annoying at best, completely off-putting at worst. Online video would work very well for the format and demographic.
As a first time viewer, i also found the pacing a bit off. It lurches from a ACA parody into an identical story which for some reason, isn’t a piss take, but a hard hitting journolistic pilgrimmage into the world of ex-cons and their victims – their children.
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