The UK singer songwriter behind the 3 Minute Gig, Europe’s first live music video podcast, is now seeking advertising sponsors for her increasingly popular live music videos which showcase new and emerging British bands live in concert.
Chi-chi Ekweozor, the singer songwriter from Manchester behind the 3 Minute Gig, Europe’s first live music video podcast, is now poised to pioneer ad-supported broadband video in the UK. The 3 Minute Gig showcases new and emerging British bands live in concert in various live music venues around Manchester. Ekweozor, 27, is set to make UK advertising history when she adds a 15 second advert to the end of the next 3 Minute Gig video.
The 3 Minute Gig is created by editing live concert footage of new and emerging British bands into 3 minutes. It is free to viewers and subscribers and is available as a video podcast and as a streaming video from www.realfresh.tv. In the two months that the 3 Minute Gig has been available, the Real Fresh TV website has:
* received over 120,000 hits
* served over 130GB of video
* achieved a hit rate of over 1500 unique hits a day
The 3 Minute Gig is also available in formats suitable for playback on Apple’s iPod, Sony’s PlayStation Portable, 3G mobile phones, PDAs and smartphones and is distributed on file-sharing networks using BitTorrent technology.
According to the Manchester Evening News:
"It is a hi-tech showcase for up-and-coming bands designed to give people the chance to experience new bands in bite-sized chunks."
This is the first time an independent content producer is adding adverts to video content distributed over broadband in the UK but the idea is gaining popularity in the United States. Rocketboom, the cult US videoblog (or video podcast) which pioneered the idea recently featured advertising for Earthlink, a US internet services provider at the end of its videos. The widely popular videoblog currently enjoys a daily viewership of 300,000. More recently, Napster, the online music destination introduced an ad-supported model for its music subscription services which allows US-based customers to listen to every track in their two million song catalogue up to five times for free.
Chi-chi Ekweozor, the singer songwriter behind the 3 Minute Gig recently left a job as a software engineer to turn her "labour of love" into a fully fledged business. She aims to attract advertisers keen to reach the live music fans that the 3 Minute Gig videos are attracting worldwide.
She was inspired to start filming concerts of new and emerging bands in October 2005 after observing the instant popularity of video podcasts on portable media devices like Apple’s iPod. Having created Europe’s first live music video podcast, her newly formed broadband and mobile entertainment company, Real Fresh TV, is set to add exclusive video interviews with high profile bands to the mix.
It is currently seeking sponsors for its existing videos. The sponsoring companies will receive a 15 second professionally produced advertisement designed to convey their brand message to their requirements.
In just two months, the 3 Minute Gig has captured the imagination of viewers from the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, Sweden and countries as far afield as China, Japan and the US. They are a highly engaged audience who interact with Real Fresh TV through its presence on social networking and entertainment destinations like MySpace.com and YouTube.com.
Real Fresh TV will also be pioneering a revenue share scheme with the bands and presenters featured in the 3 Minute Gig, as Chi-chi Ekweozor explains:
"As an unsigned musician myself, I am keenly aware of the fact that all bands and presenters featured in the 3 Minute Gig videos should receive a share of any advertising revenue. Everyone involved with the creation of the 3 Minute Gig is being kept abreast of developments and fully support our search for a sponsor."
Details on securing an advert are available at http://www.realfresh.tv or by calling +44 (0) 7885 949 266.
About Real Fresh TV:
Real Fresh TV is a broadband and mobile entertainment company dedicated to promoting new and emerging British bands on portable and mobile devices and over broadband. The company is blazing a trail in online entertainment with videos like the 3 Minute Gig which showcases new and emerging British bands live in concert. Real Fresh TV is based in Manchester, UK.
