Korean broadcaster bans Psy’s record-breaking ‘Gentleman’ video
Psy’s new music video “Gentleman†is not only breaking YouTube records, hitting more than 145 million views in less than a week, it just got banned by his home country’s biggest TV broadcaster.
South Korea’s KBS, a state-funded broadcaster, said Thursday it was banning the video because it shows Psy kicking a traffic cone with a “no parking†sign on it. The TV network says it has a policy prohibiting the showing of videos that abuse public property.
The ban comes as “Gentleman,†the follow-up to 2012’s incredibly popular “Gangnam Style†that premiered last Saturday, gallops into YouTube record books.
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In its first full day, the video was watched more than 50 million times, blazing past the previous 24-hour record of 8 million views held by Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend.†Psy’s video now has nearly 146 million views.
If it follows the same growth trajectory as that of “Gangnam Style,†the video would surpass the 1-billion-views mark within a month, according to the Wall Street Journal, which took great pains to do the math and chart the progress of the video. By comparison, it took “Gangnam Style†five months to reach 1 billion.
If that pace continues, the sequel could hit 12.6 billion views in just 75 days, according to the Wall Street Journal’s calculation. That would be more than what YouTube generates in a month for all of its millions of videos.
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