Hello Illini fan. I need your help. It won’t cost you anything.
To keep receiving videos of pre-game interviews, post-game press conferences, and ridiculous Media Day compilations, I need 506 of you to subscribe to YouTube.com/IlliniReport
Since the start of this basketball season, YouTube has been doing odd things with the videos you watch.
It began after the very first scrimmage, when I discovered that Google thinks Brad Underwood is a jihadi, or possibly a pornstar.
That dollar symbol should be green. Why is it yellow? I wondered. So I tapped it, and got the following message.
When I visited Creator Studio on my computer (you can actually do it from mobile, if you ask for Desktop View) I learned that YouTube’s robots deemed the video inappropriate for advertisers. There was a link to a page which explained what “inappropriate” means.
Basically, violence and Adult Themes.
Brad Underwood’s postgame talks can, I suppose, feature a little bit of either (if he’s especially angry about the outcome, or his team’s performance). But for the most part, it’s a family-friendly presentation.
The de-monetization problem persisted.
Nearly all of my videos were flagged. That forced me to manually request a review for each of them, which is as much of a pain in the ass as you’d imagine.
And now, it’s worse.
Google has announced that channels with fewer than 1,000 subscribers will no longer be eligible for Partnership. That’s why I need you to subscribe.
You can still access videos via Twitter, IllinoisLoyalty.com or wherever you normally find them. But if IlliniReport doesn’t reach 1,000 subscribers, there will be no more videos.
There’s also a viewership threshold, but each of these videos gets 1,500 to 15,000 views, so that’s not a problem.
For continued access to older Illini videos, such as Word Association or the notorious Purdue presser, I also need you to subscribe to YouTube.com/TheMcColley
Sorry. It’s a hassle, I know.
YouTube and Google AdSense are the two things that pay for your access to shaky post-game videos, fuzzy pictures and the indecipherable commentary you’ve come to rely on.
I’m about to board an Amtrak to Chicago, where I’ll catch the Megabus to Madison. YouTube & Google AdSense paid for each.
Someday, maybe I’ll follow Rob Jordan’s advice and write that column about the weird and inexpensive ways I travel around the country, chronicling Illini misadventures in basketball.
But I can’t do it if the ad revenue disappears.
I hope to reach a thousand subscribers by the time Michael Finke attempts his third tip-off conquest of the season, tonight at 8 p.m.
Thanks for reading.