Just before Christmas, Premier Christy Clark released a year-end video on YouTube, highlighting her government’s accomplishments in 2011, and looking forward to 2012. For a YouTube video, it was very slickly produced, with nice music, soft lighting, and great transitions. It was also posted on her Facebook page.

But the CTF is more interested in the steak than the sizzle. We wanted to know what the video cost to be produced, so we filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to find out the details. (See the FOI response for yourself here.)

Hogan Creative billed the BC Government $8,000 for the video, plus $960 in HST (enjoy the irony). That’s a total of $8,960, or put a few other ways:

- $3.42 per view (based on the 2,617 views the YouTube video had as of this posting)
- $1,120 per YouTube “Like”
- $471.58 per YouTube “Dislike”
- $35.56 per second
- $213.33 per Facebook “Like”
- $263.53 per Facebook “Comment”
- $2,240 per Facebook “Share”

One should note that the Premier did lengthy interviews with several media outlets around the same time—all for no cost to the taxpayer. 

By: Jordan Bateman
Posted: January 19, 2012
Topic: British Columbia

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