AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
YouTube popularity hints at global potential for TV talent show winner
by Paul Williams
Somebody once observed that international interest in UK reality TV show winners stopped as soon as the ferry left Dover.
For all their homegrown chart triumphs, overseas success for the likes of Gareth Gates and Will Young has, at best, been patchy, while a tie- up with the legendary Clive Davis has yet to be put to the test internationally for last year's X Factor winner Leona Lewis.
Given that, it is not surprising that Sony BMG UK's international vice president Dave Shack was hardly gearing himself up for a heavy workload as he watched mobile phone salesman Paul Potts win the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent in June.
"I watched the end of that TV show, as millions did in this country, and I thought `This won't mean much internationally'," acknowledges Shack.
But then something extraordinary happened, with the singer's triumph over adversity becoming a YouTube global hit overnight.