Welcome to the Colbert Nation

I thought that this was as good a time as any to profess my alegiance to the Colbert Nation. I LOVE the Colbert Report (Pronounced: Colber Repor) and it’s sister show, The Daily Show. I love them so much that I purchased multi-passes for both shows on iTunes. But I didn’t always love them. They can thank YouTube.Yes, YouTube. They’ve been under fire recently for selling out to Google and then freaking out when Comedy Central’s lawyers threatened to sue if they don’t take down the user submitted clips of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. But, since my wife and I don’t have cable (we don’t even have a working TV! Thank you Netflix!) I had only heard rumours of these genius shows that broach excellent content under wit and irony. So…

One day while browsing digg.com, I stumbled on a link to my first taste of Steven Colbert’s character, um, Steven Colbert. I loved it from the start! I couldn’t get enough of searching YouTube for all kinds of Steven Colbert clips. The Threat Down, The Word, being put On Notice, it was a great show! Then I realized that it was a spin off of the Daily Show. Well, search for that too while I’m at it! I quickly ordered The Daily Show’s movie Indecision 2004 from Netflix and became hooked. But there was a problem. I don’t have cable (and no television to boot). What am I to do?

I mean, I love watching clips on YouTube and all, but I want to have the episodes in hand to refer to again. I want a library of the whole show. Yes, there’s always Bittorrent, but I wanted to be legal and actually support it!

Enter iTunes. They let you purchase shows for $1.99 each. That may seem steep even thought there are no commercials. But the big win comes when you buy a “MultiPass”. That lets you get the current and the next 15 episodes for a grand total of $9.99. Thats $.63 per show. Worth it for me since it’s the only two shows I would watch on cable if we had it any way. (Which by is $60 bucks/month+ in many areas).

But Comedy Central owes its debt of gratitude to YouTube for allowing people to post clips of the show complete with their commentary and ratings. Good content will generate interest, and social tools like YouTube are a boon for allowing that interest to skyrocket. Recently Comedy Central’s parent company and YouTube reached a deal and YouTube put all the clips back up for everyone to see. I’m glad. I hope other content/media publishers recognize the values of places like YouTube, too.

This all relates to copyright, art, distribution, user interest and other stuff that I’ve wrote about before…specifically in the music area. I submit myself as a case study. I am purchasing a product because of it’s rampant spread on a free website. It is a viable business model.

—UPDATE 11/11/2006—
Two particular articles have cropped up in recent weeks that tie in with this post. First, is an author who recommends that Steven Colbert and John Stewart be nominated for person of the year by Time Magazine.

Second, is an article that scientifically compares the actual news substance of the Daily Show with any particular news pundit show that takes themselves seriously on network television. The result? The Daily Show had just as much substance in the midst of their fluff…and…wait for it…it was much more entertaining.