Is Garth Turner stretching the truth?

Monday’s Hill Times features an article about Bruce Sutherland, the videographer for Conservative-turned-Independent-turned-Green-teaser-turned-Liberal MP Garth Turner. It’s an interesting piece that describes the work of the man behind the MPtv production that Turner features on his website.

However, the subtitle of the piece caught my attention:

Garth Turner says his webcast is downloaded by about 30,000 to 40,000 viewers every night.

30,000 to 40,000 viewers every night? That would be incredible, if true. Garth would start to rival some of George Stroumboulopoulos’ numbers for The Hour (and George is on the TV dial of every Canadian television).

Let’s take a closer look at Garth’s numbers (accurate at time of this post):
Garth’s latest videos:

Title	Number of views
MPtv interviews Catherine Bell NDP MP on Bulk water exports 18 June 2007	6
MPtv interview with Derek Lee on National Security- 18 June 2007	22
MPtv Interviews Gary Merasty on funding Aboriginal Languages 15 June 2007	56
MPtv- interview with Ken Boshcoff discussing gas prices 13 June 2007	79
MPtv- Hon. Garth Turner poses a question during Question Period 12 June 2007	165
MPtv- Interviews Omar Alghabra Critic Citizenship/Immigration 13 June 2007	38
MPtv- Interview with Mark Holland Liberal Critic Natural Resources 11 June 2007	88
MPtv-Interview with Hon. Hedy Fry Critic Sport and Vancouver Olympics 11 June 07	104
MPtv – Stories about Parliament Hill-The Laurier Tower 11 June 2007	34
MPtv-interviews Glen Pearson MP from London North Center 8 June 2007	145
MPtv- Interview Nancy Karetak-Lindell MP for Nunavut 7 June 2007	92
MPtv Stories about Parliament Hill- Lester Pearson statue 4 June 2007	28
MPtv- Interview with Bill Casey Independent M.P. 6 June 2007	453
MPtv- Interview with Hon.Robert Thibault 6 May 2007	73
MPtv-Question Period- Hon. Garth Turner poses a question 5 June 2007	197
MPtv- Questions from the House Hon. 5 June 2007	57
MPtv -Interview with Hon. John McCallum Liberal Finance Critic 4 June 2007	142
MPtv- Interview-Paul Szabo on Bill C-251 Alcohol warning labels 30 May 2007	138
MPtv – Stories about Parliament Hill with Don Nixon 31 May 2007	24
MPtv Stories about Parliament hill- Cat Sanctuary 31 May 2007	182

These are the most current videos (the ones featured “above the fold” on Garth’s MPtv website).

Here are Garth’s top 10 videos by number of views:

Title	Number of views
MPtv – Garth Turner’s address to residents in Halton – October 18, 2006	7,264
MPtv – Interview with Green Party of Canada Leader, Elizabeth May – October 17, 2006	3,170
MPtv – Income Trust Press Conference 29 January 2007	2,945
MPtv – Garth Turner joins Liberal caucus – February 6, 2007	2,593
MPtv – Question Period in the House of Commons of Canada – October 25, 2006	2,465
MPtv – Garth Turner reflects on his options after dismissal from the Conservative Party	1,865
MPtv – Freedom Of Speech In Canada – November 12, 2006	1,554
MPtv- Mike Duffy On Parlimentary Preparations 26 January 2007	1,549
MPtv – Garth Turner commentary before press conference – November 14, 2006	1,392
MPtv – Pierre Paquette discussion Quebec as a Nation- December 12, 2006	1,344

The numbers for the top 10 videos aren’t bad, but consider that Garth boasts 30,000-40,000 views of MPtv per night. The numbers above represent the number of views since the date included in the title. It is closer to the truth to say that Garth’s videos have been viewed 30,000 times (in total) rather than per day.

It seems that Garth’s typical video gets about 50-200 hits (total) while his top video received 7,264 views since October 18th, 2006. A far cry from 30,000 to 40,000 video views every night that Garth claims.

NOTE (6/20): Anyone who wishes to verify the numbers that I state above can click on the title links in the table to go to each movie hosted on Google Video. The “All time views” are listed in the right hand column of those pages. The numbers are accurate to the time of this post yesterday. All of Garth’s video are hosted on Google Video and he embeds the player on his site. Every view from the embeddable player on Garth’s website registers as a “view” on Google Video, since the player is hosted on Google’s site and plays the same Google-hosted video. Whether a Garth video is viewed on Google, on Garth’s site or my site via embeddable player, Google registers a “view” on the video’s homepage hosted on Google. I see that Garth has chosen to respond to this post in a way that attacks me as a person, rather than challenge my claims with any valid counter-argument. This is unfortunate.

Of course, I’ve written about Garth’s poor choices before:
I took the Garth Challenge
Garth the Grit