Another update on the Great Scot Goes Pop Video-Blogging Experiment

For two-and-a-half months between late February and early May, I was so wrapped up in writing the 73 daily constituency profiles for The National that a) I had much less time to make YouTube videos, so I did fewer, and b) I pretty much stopped keeping track of my progress in turning the videos into a sustainable alternative funding model.  I've since been doing some catch-up on that, and the latest stats are fairly grim.  The bottom line is that, as things stand, it's just not working.  And there's no point in anyone saying "I told you so", because as I said at the outset last year, I went into this experiment with my eyes wide open - I had checked what the average earnings per 1000 views were in the UK, and at that average level it would have just about worked.  However, I also knew that individual YouTube channels can fall anywhere on a very wide range on either side of that average, depending on their subject-matter and the demographics of their viewers, and the only way I was ever going to find out where my own channel would slot in was by giving it a proper go for a few months.  

Yup, you've guessed it, it turns out that videos about Scottish politics slot in pretty much at the absolute lowest end of the earnings range.  It's puzzling in a way, because my videos are disproportionately viewed by males over the age of 55, and if anything I'd have thought that would be a relatively higher-income group that advertisers would be only too keen to target, but apparently it doesn't work that way.  So I'm now not entirely sure of the best way forward, and I'm going to have to mull it over a bit.  

In theory, YouTube could still be made to work, but to do that I'd have to think big - on the current rate of return, I'd have to average 10,000-20,000 views per video.  So far my most popular individual video has around 7000 views, and obviously the average is much lower than that.  Is it even feasible to get up to the required level with a channel about Scottish politics?  I genuinely don't know.  I've found a small number of political channels that have pulled it off, including ones that just seem to be run by ordinary blokes like me rather than by celebrity commentators, but crucially they all have a UK-wide focus.  If anyone knows of a specifically Scottish political YouTube channel that receives a large number of views, please do let me know, because that would be important information to factor in.

It's also theoretically possible to square the circle by making a YouTube income via sponsorships (which are generally much more lucrative than the regular earnings anyway), but in practice there's a Catch-22, because apparently channels require average views of at least 10,000 per video to attract sponsors in the first place.  So it seems there's no way of getting around it - that's the daunting level of popularity my channel would need to reach.  

Basically I'm going to have to decide whether to double down on the YouTube idea and go all-out in trying to make the channel go truly galactic, or whether I should declare it a failed experiment and try something radically different, such as Substack or a similar site.  I'm reluctant to do the latter, because it would probably involve putting at least a minority of material behind a paywall, which I'd really rather not do.  Or I could just try to keep this blog going in the way I've been doing over the last few years, but you've seen what that's involved - I've just barely stayed afloat, but only with near-constant, in-your-face fundraising, which I am so tired of having to do, and I know you must be equally tired of seeing the reminders of the fundraisers at the bottom of each blogpost.  

For the time being, though, please bear with me because I simply have no choice but to keep plugging away at the fundraising for at least a few more weeks.  As I've mentioned a few times, I've been due to receive a substantial payment for freelance work at some point in May or June, and once that comes in I should be able to take a much-needed complete break from fundraising for at least a few months, but as of today there's still no sign of it even being in the pipeline.  So your patience is much appreciated as I continue to promote the fundraiser at the end of each post in the following manner...

If you enjoyed Scot Goes Pop's 2026 election coverage so much that you started to feel an inexplicable urge to buy me a hot chocolate or a ham-and-cheese toastie, donations are very welcome.  There are three main options: 
a) you can donate by card HERE 
b) you can make a direct PayPal donation to my PayPal email address, which is: jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

c) you can make a donation by bank transfer - for the necessary details, please drop me a line at my contact email address, which is: icehouse.250@gmail.com