On any day, Nancy Blison will spend hours watching the 747 on the track in Lax. That in itself it may not be particularly notable, except for the fact that it lives more than 2,000 miles away.
«I will turn on the 24 -hour YouTube channel and will take into account,» says 68 -year -old retired computer consultant from Wixom, Michigan. «Both entertain my cats and me.»
Bliven is part of a growing global community of virtual aircraft observers: Aviation fans that tune in remotely for live broadcasts of the main airports. Think about it as the Bob rossification of air trips: airplanes that take off and land in high definition, narrated in soothing tones by amateur stations that have turned this niche hobby in a great business.
Your favorite channel? Videos of the airline, a YouTube giant with more than 800,000 subscribers. Three times a week, the creator Kevin Ray Livestressams Jumbo Jets arrived and leaving in Lax, among other airfields, splicing in air traffic control audio, striking graphics on the screen and its own colorful play played by game that gives the entire sensation of a cable sports transmission, if it did not cover any ESPN, but the soaps of wide body.
Other live broadcast channels have also found audiences: live airplanes, based at Manchester airport in the United Kingdom, it has almost as many live spectators as Ray’s Feed. Big Jet TV, which gained fame to transmit during a wind storm in Heathrow, attracts half a million fans. And HD Melbourne Aviation captures takeoffs and landings from all over the world and publishes them after the fact of its 600,000 subscribers.
But none coincides with the Polish, or the cult of personality, the videos of the airlines.
«Other channels have no Kevin,» says Bliven. «His great Sunday show is very entertaining, very informative and very fun. That is different.»
For Ray, the fascination with air trips began early. When he was a child, his grandparents would take him to Lansing airport, Michigan, to meet incoming flights. «Only the smell of fuel for airplanes when you entered the airport,» he recalls, «I fell in love with it.»
Screen capture/YouTube
A former television news photographer Ray launched the channel in 2019 as a parallel project. Two years later, he left his daily work. «I just wanted to take it to the next level,» he says. «How can I make it more entertaining with graphics and music and things like that?»
It worked. The airline’s videos, which operates from a roof at the H-Adjacent H hotel, is now its full-time concert. He refuses to say how many of his viewers pay for monthly memberships, which vary from $ 1.99 to $ 49.99, but confirms that he is winning more than in local news. «Our greatest income is memberships,» he says. Other income flows include donations from PayPal and Super Chat of YouTube, which allows viewers to set their comments on the transmission by a rate.
Its fans base covers from the simply curious to the obsessive at Marvel level. Bliven, who is in the subscription plan of $ 24 per month, falls into some intermediate point, although he traveled from Michigan to New York to join other rayettes for a special live broadcast event at the JFK airport. Other fans tune in for strictly medicinal purposes. «We have people who are afraid to fly that watch because they calm their fears,» says Ray. «I almost feel that it is my job to be a comfort for many people around the world.»
Aircraft observers in Lax in 2007, long before YouTube was easy to see takeoffs and landings from the comfort of your laptop.
Charles Ommanney/Getty Images
That work is only becoming more viable. In February, the YouTube CEO, Neal Mohan, revealed that, for the first time, more people are watching YouTube programs such as Ray’s on TVs than on mobile or desktop devices. In other words, as more consumers leave traditional media by content led by the creator, emitters like Ray are prepared to become even larger stars than they are already.
Even so, Ray warns, «aiming a camera to heaven will not make you famous.» The space is being filled. «In the last three years, you go to YouTube and there are live airport broadcasts worldwide,» he says. «It’s as if we open the gate.»
This story appeared in the May 21 edition of Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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