Balcony TV up for net 'Oscar'

11-04-2008

by Emmet Ryan

Irish music and entertainment website BalconyTV.com has been nominated for the internet's equivalent of the Oscars.

Balcony TV is up for two awards at this year's Webbys, both in the category of Best Viral Video. One award will be selected by a panel of judges, the other by public vote.

"We never expected to get nominated. The internet, for the past year and a half, has been all about viral video so to make the final five is great," Stephen O'Regan, co-founder and producer of BalconyTV, told ENN.

The website was founded by O'Regan alongside presenters Pauline Freeman and Tom Millett in 2006. Balcony TV uses freely-available web resources, including Blogger and YouTube, to present videos of bands playing on the balcony of an apartment on Dublin's Dame St every day. The site is primarily used to help promote up-and-coming musicians and to date has nearly 2 million views, and is currently receiving over 5,000 views daily.

O'Regan said the website faces stiff competition in order to win the public vote. "Chocolate Rain [another nominee in the category] has over 18 million views on YouTube," he said. "If we even got everybody in Ireland to vote for us that's still only 4 million people."

The Webbys, now in their twelfth year, aim to honour achievements online. The awards are presided over by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences and the event's organisers praised the efforts of Balcony TV in earning its nomination. "Balcony TV's nominee selection is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators," said David-Michel Davies, executive director of the Webby Awards.

In addition to Chocolate Rain, which was recently parodied on the cartoon South Park, Balcony TV faces competition in the Webbys from Tony vs Paul, I got a crush on Obama, and Here Comes Another Bubble. The Irish website will learn if it has picked up one of the gongs on 6 May and the 2008 Webby Awards ceremony will be held in New York in June. Public voting is open until 1 May and votes can be cast at pv.webbyawards.com.

This latest nomination follows the Dublin-based website's triumph in the 2007 Digital Media Awards where it was named Best Music Website. On foot of this recent success BalconyTV has expanded with a sister operation, BalconyTV.de, being established in Hamburg, Germany. Like the Dublin site the German operation mostly features performances from bands and solo artists.

Further expansion is planned with the Dublin-based operation receiving enquiries from cities such as Barcelona, Moscow and Los Angeles. "We are actively talking to a number of companies about how to manage international development of the site," said O'Regan.