In 2002, The Young Turks became the first original talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. In 2005, with the emergence of video, founder Cenk Uygur and his crew purchased some cameras and started the first live, daily webcast on the Internet. Four years later came a Podcast Award for Best Political Podcast, one from Mashable for Best Political News Site, and a nomination for the Audience's Choice Award at the 2010 Streamy Awards. All of this with zero backing from traditional broadcast networks.
"The goal is supposed to be on television. We say, 'No, we can build a television network ironically not on television,'" says Uygur. "In TV, you have the pressure of 'every single minute has to deliver ratings gold.' Whereas we just let the audience pick. If people want to watch the story about Kim Kardashian more, we don't judge them; that's their choice. If they want to watch the story about Obama more, that's great. Everybody wins."
Today, The Young Turks has a sponsorship deal with Netflix, plans for a spinoff YouTube channel focused on bloggers, plus -- count 'em -- 250 million viewers and growing. Take that, Team Coco.
How did you secure and sustain funding for The Young Turks?
When we started on radio, we didn't need much. In fact, we started in my living room. But we did need some radio equipment: mixers, mikes, etc. I got that tiny bit of seed money from a friend of mine; we technically call them "angel investors," but they're really family and friends. Then, we wound up getting the contracts from Sirius, so that sustained us for a long time. Once we left Sirius to do online video, we needed more seed money; that, again, we got from more angel investors.
"We kept experimenting with what works and doesn't work. In the beginning, we weren't on YouTube and realized, along with a lot of other people, that most of the audience was there."
We raised a little bit of money, and we're very frugal. We know how to get the most bang for our buck. We're not in over our head. We have reasonable, solid goals. And we rely on our audience. A lot of our bills are paid by our members, people who podcast the show. They feel like they have ownership over the show, and they do.
What is the significance of the show's title, and how does this concept shape content?
We selected "The Young Turks" because it means young rebels looking to overthrow the established system. That's what we fancy ourselves. When we started out, we were basically the only liberal show on radio. In '02, everything was wall-to-wall conservative. Almost no one in the media was speaking out against the Iraq War -- partly because if they did, they got fired. I couldn't believe we were the only ones saying, "This war is absolutely crazy." You have to find your audience and be willing to take risks -- and not do things the established way. It's just in our DNA that we challenge conventional wisdom wherever we find it.
The show focuses on an "honest" delivery of news, but how do you deal with the influences shaping every reporter's viewpoint?
There's a difference between the truth and honesty. We don't claim to have a monopoly on the truth. Sometimes truth is relative, depending on your perspective. But you can be completely honest. We're not biased by all of the other factors that might be involved with the party, sponsors, contributors; all the things that bring bias into the press -- access. We strip all those things away, so you know that what you're getting from us is really what we think about the situation at hand.
Our priority is trying to deliver the real news to our audience. So we don't give a damn about access. We end up getting the top politicians and celebrities anyway because we found such a large audience. But we don't bend our program to their will and needs. We try to serve the needs of our audience.
Why do you think the show has reached a mass audience?
You start with a passion in whatever field that might be. For us, it was news and current events -- and that's not just politics; all of the current events. I deeply care about the news, even if it's goofy news, I'm fascinated by it, to a fault probably. Once you do that show, you find the audience that is attracted to that.
We kept experimenting with what works and doesn't work. In the beginning, we weren't on YouTube and realized, along with a lot of other people, that most of the audience was there. We experimented with the size of the clips, titles and tags. Online, if you do a good video clip or write a good article, people are going to forward that to the people they know will like that and bring the audience to you.
"I have no desire to turn down a larger audience and more money. We're just not willing to compromise for the money."
How do you work extemporaneously without relying on writers?
I read voraciously -- every article imaginable, ranging from dense financial news to light entertainment news. I have a way of organizing it in my head, and I print out the stories that we're going to talk about. Then, I put them in a stack of papers in the order that I'm going to go in the show. If I need to refer to a number, I'll usually remember it; if not, I'll just look down at the papers in front of me. In my mind, what I do is I tell a story. I don't know how I keep it all in my head, but I do.
Will The Young Turks go mainstream?
If somebody says, "We've got a TV show for you. Stop what you're doing, and just do our show," I would say, "No way." I love what we're doing and would never shut it down just to do TV. But if someone asks, "Do you want to do this on TV, as well?" then I'm definitely interested. I have no desire to turn down a larger audience and more money. We're just not willing to compromise for the money, and I think that's an enormous difference.
Do you have any stories about The Young Turks inspiring others to do good work?
Usually someone in college says, "I'm going to switch my major to journalism or political science." This morning, someone said he was going into pre-law because he wants to make a difference; his dream is to be part of the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union]. I guess we inspire them to go for it; to live out their dream and make a difference in the world. That's, by far, the best part of the job.
What are your future plans for The Young Turks?
We're going to start a network of other bloggers who are like-minded and we think are smart, interesting and entertaining. We're going to start a new YouTube channel and a new show on our website surrounded around them. So it's not just me anymore, and it's not just The Young Turks anymore; it'll be this network of people we think are stars or who can be stars.
Then, we'll start a similar network on YouTube for our listeners. We're going to call that one The Young Turks Nation; it allows the audience to pick who they like. So if someone who is a viewer does these terrific blogs, we'll move them up to what we're tentatively calling The Young Turks Stars. If they do really well from that, then we give them their own show. We eliminate the middle man.
Uygur's tips for rising bloggers and video stars
1. Find your passion. If you're not intensely passionate, you're not going to put in the gargantuan number of hours that you need to find the audience that's going to enjoy your work.
2. Work hard. I don't want to delude anyone. It's really difficult. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work.
3. Figure out all the ways for people to find you. Do all the nitty-gritty hard work behind the scenes: tags, titles and SEO [search engine optimization].
4. Be responsive to your audience. If they say, "Hey, have you covered this, or did you think about that?" have a real interaction with them. If I do something wrong, I'll get tweets and emails on it. The first thing I'll do is correct it and give credit to the guy who emailed or the many people who did.
5. Become a trustworthy expert. If you do all of that, eventually people will say, "OK, he's good at this. When I want X, I'll turn to him."
