Brussels Tries to Lift Image on YouTube

The European Commission plans to launch a page on the video-sharing site to reach a new audience for its policy messages

by Helena Spongenberg

The European Commission has jumped on the video-sharing bandwagon by opening a page on the YouTube website to spread its audiovisual messages.

The European Commission has jumped on the video-sharing bandwagon by opening a page on the YouTube website to spread its audiovisual messages.

The EU homepage -- www.youtube.com/EUtube -- will officially be launched on Friday (29 June) under plans by EU communication commissioner Margot Wallstrom.

Although there is no plan yet to compete with Paris Hilton videos -- which are some of the most popular searches on YouTube -- the EU executive aims to reach out to a new audience.

"We have audiovisual material on our own website," commission spokesman Mikolaj Dowgielewicz told EUobserver. "But people don't know it exists," he added, explaining that that is one of the main reasons for setting up the YouTube channel.

YouTube currently delivers more than 100 million video views every day with 65,000 new videos uploaded daily. It has quickly become the leading destination on the Internet for video entertainment, with roughly 50 percent of its users being under 20 years of age.

No. 10 Downing Street, BBC and EuroNews are among the government and media organisations that have already set up their own channel on the website, which currently dominates nearly 43 percent of the internet video search market, according to internet monitor Hitwise.

"The advantage of having a channel on YouTube is that when a user watches a video clip belonging to the channel, he or she is prompted to watch other clips from the same source," Mr Dowgielewicz said.

He noted that this makes the marketing of EU videos very easy.

The official said the EUtube channel will be multilingual and videos in different languages will be onlined in the weeks ahead, despite the mainly English-speaking videos to be found on the site so far.

The new cyberspace move will not cost the EU extra money, as only existing material will be added to the YouTube website for the time being. Meanwhile, viewers will be able to post their comments on the EU offerings.

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