Simultaneous MLT YouTube Views

[David Herrick]

In a recent “Ask MLT” thread titled “When you do live shows again”, the question came up as to how many people worldwide are watching a given MLT video on YouTube at the same time. I figured out a way to estimate that number based on the length of the video, the age of the video, and the total number of views. There are some caveats, most significantly that it’s an average over the entire history of the video rather than the number at any given moment. You can check out the aforementioned thread for details.

Ten days ago I tabulated the top ten MLT videos with regard to the number of simultaneous views (S). Here’s how it turned out:

1) Please Mr. Postman / Wipeout: S = 16.7
2) Both Sides Now: S = 16.2
3) Wish You Were Here: S = 13.0
4) Nowhere Man: S = 8.7
5) You Can’t Do That: S = 5.8
6) Lola: S = 4.7
7) While My Guitar Gently Weeps: S = 4.3
8) Sunshine Superman: S = 4.2
9) I’m a Believer: S = 4.0
10) Till There Was You: S = 3.2

And here’s how that list stands today, with the change in S given in parentheses after the updated value:

1) You Really Got Me: S = 19.2 (new)
2) Please Mr. Postman / Wipeout: S = 16.6 (-0.1)
3) Wish You Were Here: S = 12.9 (-0.1)
4) Both Sides Now: S = 12.1 (-4.1)
5) Nowhere Man: S = 8.2 (-0.5)
6) You Can’t Do That: S = 5.8 (0.0)
7) Lola: S = 4.7 (0.0)
8) While My Guitar Gently Weeps: S = 4.3 (0.0)
9) I’m a Believer: S = 3.9 (-0.1)
10) Sunshine Superman: S = 3.8 (-0.4)

For a given video the number of simultaneous views is proportional to how many views it gets per day, so it’s expected that each S number will start out high during the discovery phase, drop off relatively quickly at first, and then gradually plateau over the long term. That seems to be the pattern we’re seeing here thus far. (The S number for YRGM is currently decreasing at about 0.1 per hour!) Longer videos have a leg up on shorter ones because the more time it takes to watch, the more viewers must be watching together in order to reach a certain number of views in a certain period of time.

The take-home lesson is that thanks to MLT, a lot of people are, as JP put it, “smiling for the same reason at precisely the same time”.

I plan to update this list about once a month, plus perhaps an occasional “news flash” when events warrant, until either I get bored with it or everyone tells me to stop.

Discussion

[David Herrick]

Averaged over the past week, Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma is at V = 946 and C = 2.57. Meanwhile, averaged over the past five days, the We’re Going Live video announcement is at V = 126 and C = 0.45.

[David Herrick]

Here are the figures for October. All data are averaged over the period from October 1st through October 31st, except for Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma, which is for just the last five days.

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simultaneous views:

1) Please Mr. Postman / Wipe Out: C = 4.95 (-0.81)

2) She Loves You: C = 3.76 (+0.06)

3) While My Guitar Gently Weeps: C = 3.27 (-0.59)

4) Here Comes the Sun: C = 3.00 (-1.25)

5) Drive My Car (2012): C = 2.50 (-1.63)

6) I Saw Her Standing There: C = 2.49 (+0.34)

7) You Can’t Do That: C = 2.25 (-0.56)

8) She’s a Woman: C = 1.64 (+0.08)

9) When I’m Sixty-Four: C = 1.64 (-0.12)

10) Paint it Black: C = 1.64 (-0.18)

11) Nowhere Man: C = 1.60 (-0.25)

12) If I Fell: C = 1.51 (-0.03)

13) Wish You Were Here: C = 1.29 (+0.10)

14) Day Tripper: C = 1.23 (-0.28)

15) Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma: C = 1.17 (new)

16) Till There Was You: C = 1.12 (-0.07)

17) Africa: C = 1.11 (-0.05)

18) This Boy: C = 1.11 (-0.11)

19) I’m a Believer: C = 1.08 (-0.20)

20) Vincent: C = 1.04 (+0.11)

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views per day:

1) She Loves You: V = 1834 (+30)

2) Please Mr. Postman / Wipe Out: V = 1744 (-296)

3) Drive My Car (2012): V = 1295 (-843)

4) Here Comes the Sun: V = 1234 (-515)

5) I Saw Her Standing There: V = 1060 (+145)

6) You Can’t Do That: V = 1034 (-257)

7) While My Guitar Gently Weeps: V = 1031 (-187)

8) When I’m Sixty-Four: V = 811 (-57)

9) Nowhere Man: V = 714 (-110)

10) If I Fell: V = 681 (-15)

11) Paint it Black: V = 646 (-74)

12) Till There Was You: V = 592 (-38)

13) She’s a Woman: V = 585 (+29)

14) Day Tripper: V = 537 (-123)

15) Tell Me Why: V = 490 (-110)

16) In My Life: V = 476 (-97)

17) This Boy: V = 471 (-49)

18) Please Please Me: V = 456 (-46)

19) San Francisco: V = 449 (-105)

20) I’m a Believer: V = 431 (-82)

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Looks like another down month overall. However, we have a brand new champion song as She Loves You has taken over the top spot in views. The newest entry, Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma, just missed out on the top 20 at V = 430.

[David Herrick]

For the last hour of November 5th, In It for Love is at V = 11040 and C = 21.2.

[Author]

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