http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/business/media/americas-funniest-home-videos-turns-25.html 2014-09-17 22:16:36 ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ Turns 25 “America’s Funniest Home Videos” turns 25, with YouTube a surprising part of its continued success. === MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — “A relic of a bygone time.” “The uncoolest show on TV.” “Inexplicably never-ending, like a Cher farewell tour.” Critics and bloggers can beat it up all they want. If “America’s Funniest Home Videos” has proved anything over the decades, it is this: It will get the last laugh. Twenty-five years after unveiling its first piano-playing chickens, vaudevillian babies and backyard trampoline bumblers — and nine years after Why does this war horse endure? Start with the invention that was supposed to kill it. “I remember first hearing about this thing called YouTube,” said Vin Di Bona, who has produced “America’s Funniest Home Videos” since its start. “I looked to see what it was, and three of the first six videos were from our show.” Mr. Di Bona used salty language to express his initial anger. He was also slightly terrified. People interested in cutely misbehaving cats and denture-losing grannies no longer needed to watch his weekly show. Now they could simply coast over to YouTube, day or night. But the Internet ended up a surprising boon. “People got excited about video clips again,” Mr. Di Bona said. To turn YouTube even more to its advantage, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” in January hired behind-the-scenes specialists. Maker Studios, a producer and distributor of web video, now manages the show’s For the 25th season, which starts Oct. 5 on ABC, Maker and “America’s Funniest Home Videos” will deepen their partnership. Maker clients including Jason Horton, Ceciley Jenkins and Ed Bassmaster — YouTube personalities with a combined two million subscribers — will begin re-enacting classic “A.F.V.” clips for distribution on the show’s online channels. Two other web series, including one by the YouTube stars will also appear regularly on the television show, a first. “If it wasn’t for ‘A.F.V.,’ I may have never posted that first video of me dancing in a unitard,” said Shay Butler, a.k.a. Shay Carl, 34, adding that he was 9 when he first started watching the series. Maker was In some ways, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” is the same show now as it was back when Mr. Butler started watching as a child. A comedic host, currently Tom Bergeron, introduces viewer-submitted video clips that range from five to 30 seconds in length. More than 100 exclusive clips make it into each show. It’s overtly cheesy. There are thematic montages — pity the submission that makes it to the “Nincompoop Corner” — and some videos are started and then abruptly stopped as part of a quiz; audience members are asked to guess what indignity the subject will suffer. “ The Smithsonian Institution now owns the camcorder used to immortalize the first winning clip, which depicted a woman While sticking to the formula, Mr. Di Bona and his producers, several of whom have been with the show since the beginning, work hard to keep the series feeling current. The flashy set, housed in a chilly soundstage here in Manhattan Beach south of Los Angeles, now includes a cocktail bar. Granted, it is more akin to what one would find in a Marriott lobby than a Hollywood nightclub, but know your audience: Nebraska submits more videos per capita than any state, Mr. Di Bona said. If this is the uncoolest show on TV, nobody bothered to tell the studio audience at a recent taping. The snazzily attired crowd seemed genuinely thrilled to be there, as Mr. Bergeron, who joined the show in 2001 and has said this season will be his last, cracked jokes between takes. “Smiles! Happy! Enthusiastic!” the audience coordinator shouted. In truth, nobody — including a cynical reporter — needed a lot of encouraging. “America’s Funniest Home Videos” endures in part because it is one of the few shows on the main broadcast networks that families can comfortably watch together; according to Nielsen, the series was the No. 1 “family co-viewing” show on any broadcast network last season. This is firmly PG-rated stuff, after all. So it’s no dice for the viewer who submitted footage of a masturbating walrus. That clip will never be seen, at least not on Mr. Di Bona’s watch. When the series first appeared in 1989, about 32 million people tuned in. Last season — in a sharply different media environment — the show averaged about 6.3 million viewers. (By way of comparison, “Scandal” attracts roughly 12 million.) But Mr. Di Bona said his show will keep on keeping on as long as harebrained videographers remain in the world. “God knows why people never learn,” he said. “But God bless them.”