A TV Show About Online Videos Shows Us We’re In A Weird Place With Content Right Now

A TV show devoted entirely to showing nothing but online videos is now the No. 1 syndicated new show in the nation. You may have seen RightThisMinute on HLN or one of your local channels: It’s on most Cox, Scripps and Raycom stations coast to coast and will soon be syndicated throughout about 91 percent of the country.

The show gets over 2 million viewers for each half-hour episode. Comparing some of the long-standing syndicated shows like the ever popular Judge Judy to RTM is like comparing apples to oranges, but it’s more popular than new shows with big names like Bethany and also Queen Latifah’s new talk show.

There are no writers for the show. The producers and talent all watch and comment on videos they find, TMZ-style, just as they watch them. That may be because the former executive producer for TMZ, Lisa Hudson, is now a part of the RTM team.

Videos on TV conjure up images of Bob Saget hosting America’s Funniest Home Videos. Something we’ve left in the past. We’ve moved on to making our second screen our first screen with YouTube, Hulu and Netflix on hand. “We find the best videos from around the web and bring them to your TV screen,” says show host Beth Troutman. She sees the show as a good crossover in this weird time of TV meets Internet meets TV viewership. Shows like The Young Turks and Revision 3 have niche audiences, and not everyone discovers them with the flip of a channel. I sat down with Troutman to find out why this show has become so popular.

While generation Z opts for their mobile devices, there’s still plenty of Americans watching good old network programming. The latest from Nielsen shows 18-24 year olds still watch about 22 hours of TV per week. The numbers also show online video content can act as a complement rather than a replacement for traditional television. And so we get the marriage of crazy videos and TV together to make one very popular show.