Part 3 - The Laid Off Founder - Don't Believe The Hype

2006

In our very earliest days we tried simple stunts to draw attention to BalconyTV. We had 10,000 business card size flyers printed out with nothing but our logo on one side. I had my brother Adam and his best mate Paul Og stand at the top of Grafton Street (Dublin) and hand them out to passers by.

It turns out 10,000 is a lot of flyers and they were impossible to get rid of. Me and my co-founder Tom went into clothes shops around the city and slipped the flyers into the pockets of shirts hanging on the rails. We were just mates making it up as we went along. We would get a kick from finding new unique places to put the flyers. It was all harmless fun. But it took months to get rid of them all, and for years later they would pop up in unusual places.

We got a very basic banner printed out and draped it outside our balcony in the centre of Dublin. It seemed like a good idea what with the passing footfall. But in truth, how often do people look up when they walk down the street? Now with smartphones, they are always looking down. To combat that problem, and somewhat obnoxiously we got a megaphone. With it Tom announced BalconyTV to the passing people on the street below.

I was diligently filming a daily show on our balcony featuring various local artists including local heroes The Hot Sprockets, Readers Wives and Una Healy (who would go on to stardom with The Saturdays) and others. These artists were the type of artists that might play small gigs in local venues but usually didn't have much wider an audience.

A month or so after we launched BalconyTV I had a phone call.

"Hello"

There was a strong Northern Irish accent on the other end of the phone.

"Is this BalconyTV?"

"Eh, yeah."

"This is Paul Brady."

Paul Brady is a legendary Irish musician. He has survived the music industry over decades while evolving through different styles. He has written songs for other artists including Tina Turner while receiving plaudits from the likes of Bob Dylan and Bono.

When I was a teenager I was once an usher in the Vicar Street music venue in Dublin where Brady performed regularly for 2 or 3 weeks with each night focusing on a different album of his back catalogue. I didn't know Bradys material before those shows, but I remember particularly loving his early folk sounds. I couldn't believe he was calling.

"So I was thinking I might come and play on your balcony. When would be good?"

"Whenever you want."

"Could I do it in about 20 minutes?"

"Ehhh... yeah sure."

My flatmate Pauline was in her room at the time of the call. I ran and banged on our door.

"We have to clean this place quick! Paul Brady is coming up!"

"What! Paul Brady! When?" Pauline was as shocked as me.

"Now. We need to clean this place now!"

I don't think we ever cleaned the place so fast.

Paul Brady came up our 5 floors of stairs and came into our apartment. He strikes an intimidating figure. He certainly was to me. I was nervous talking to him as he tuned up. He was quick and to the point.

"What do you want me to play?"

"Whatever you want." I couldn't think straight.

"I'll play Mary and the Soldier."

Pauline was dressed like it was the Academy Awards to present the show. It was noisy enough on the street below - not the most suitable time of day to tape, but Brady like the rock star and pro he was didn't care and just got on with it. I was praying nothing would go wrong as I nervously maned the camera.

After the performance Brady said "I got some of the lyrics wrong in the middle."

I didn't know what to say.

"Nevermind."

I loved that attitude. Live music should not be perfect. Filming endless shows in the years after I would often get frustrated with noodling artists who wanted things to be just right. I would always think of Bradys cool attitude to it and his appreciation that the imperfections only make the performance more real. Thats how I read it anyway.

Having Paul Brady on the show was a huge moment for us and the video got great attention.

I was emailed by a The Star newspaper who wanted to do an article about what we were doing. Wow! To be featured in a newspaper was a big deal for us. After interviewing me, they wanted to send a photographer to take some photos of us. I remember the photographer arriving to our messy apartment and not really having a clue what it was all about.

I wanted Tom and Pauline to be the faces of BalconyTV so they got out on the balcony for the photos.

“Big smiles. Say cheese.” Snap. Snap. Done.

We were in our element.

With the ego fix of making the news I wondered could we get more publicity from the media. I took to visiting the websites of all the Irish newspapers and radio stations, and tried to find any email that could have been of any use. I would send hit and hope emails. I learned that sending them was a bit like buying a lottery ticket. You only really needed one hit to make it worthwhile. And when you got that one hit, you wanted that hit again. And like any good drug I became addicted to sending emails out trying to get us some attention. I would spend hours at it each day.

I couldn't believe it when RTE 2FM (the biggest pop radio station in Ireland) responded to one of my emails. The legendary fast talking Irish DJ Dave Fanning himself wanted to do a telephone interview me about what we were doing. This was the man who has over his time interviewed virtually every mega star in the music world on his internationally distributed TV show - rock profiles. Dave Fanning was also famous for playing U2 on the radio for the first time.

I had a couple of beers before the live phone in interview to settle the nerves.

Deep breath.

“Have you heard about BalconyTV? Well maybe you should have,” he opened up with.

After some mediocre banter back and forth where I presented the whole concept with an over the top excitement - Fanning asked whether we were hoping to make it big off the concept.

I stumbled over my words as I explained that we didn’t know what we had on our hands.

“We are trying to create something new. We are trying to create something cool and new,” my vocabulary sadly lacking. I cringe when I listen back.

In a further step, in November 2006 I was invited to be a panelist on a live RTE TV day time show - Seoige and O'Shea to talk about what YouTube was all about. From tabloid to radio to live national TV! With a growing sense of self importance, I completely over dressed for the show, deciding to go with a suit and tie affair. Absurd. Not the image BalconyTV needed at all. I needed the laid back founder look - a bit scruffy, rolled up sleeves. Not the wannabe mogul. To make it worse I was pasted in orange make up for my debut TV appearance. I looked like an Oompa Loompa in a suit and tie.

It turns out TV isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The show had a small set, lights and some cameras. Of course I knew that’s all it was. But really, that’s all it is. In a way the illusion TV presents is not that different from the illusion we were trying to build.

The presenter of the show Grainne Seoige had risen fast in the TV industry. I confess to having had a huge crush on her, and thus I was nervous and bashful as she asked me all about what we were doing on our balcony. Again after some good natured back and forth, she showed her journalist background with the probing question.

“What’s in it for you?”

“What’s in it for me? Well you know....” Thinking.

“Ehhhh...”

You can’t ehhhh on TV. “It’s all a bit of fun really.”

Seoige looked at me with a smirk as if to say you’re talking nonsense, before telling me that I wanted to be the next Paul McGuinness - the titan manager of U2. I tried to laugh that off. But being the next Paul McGuinness would not have been bad end result. My face turned from orange to red.

Despite all this media buzz I was doing a good job at generating, it didn’t really affect the numbers that were visiting our videos. The positive affect was that more people had heard about BalconyTV even if they didn’t feel compelled to check it regularly. It became one of those, “have you heard about that thing...?” things.

Deep down what I was hoping for was that a big brand or sponsor would hear our story and want to get involved. I secretly hoped that Mr Coca Cola would call me and say “We love this. We get it. Let’s us write you a check.”

Teasingly on the back of one interview I had a voicemail.

“Hello, it’s Denis O’Brien."

Denis O'Brien is an Irish billionaire making his fortune in communications.

"I just heard about what you’re doing. It’s brilliant.” That was it.

I ran to Tom to tell him the news of the call.

“Eh, I just got a voicemail from Denis O’Brien”

“Fuck off” he responded almost spilling his beer.

“Which ones Denis O’Brien again?” I asked.

Sadly Denis never left a number. And despite some desperate efforts to hunt him down, we never spoke. Perhaps it was a friend pulling a stunt. But the call itself, coupled with the media attention we were getting and the huge interest from artists all over the country to perform I became convinced me we had something on our hands.