VOA Video Feature ‘OMG! Meiyu’ Hits iTunes Store

OMG! Meiyu, Voice of America’s trendy Chinese-English video blog, is attracting new fans at the iTunes store, where Jessica Beinecke’s popular teaching segments are now available for free as podcasts.

Millions of people in China and elsewhere have come to love Jessica’s catchy video feature, which teaches “the newest and most authentic American slang,” and encourages her fans to ask about expressions being used by young people in the United States.

The short video program was catapulted to fame late last year (here) following the release of Yucky Gunk, a user-requested episode that went viral. Since then, OMG! Meiyu segments have been downloaded from social media sites more than 8 million times.

OMG! was introduced to the iTunes store March 14th as a language learning podcast and it has already made its way into the “New and Noteworthy” section, and become a big hit in China.

Jessica, the host and creator of the VOA program, says it’s “about cultural understanding as well as language learning, and I’m just so happy that our fans around the world can now get these videos on the iTunes store. We want to continue reaching out to our audience in every way possible and podcasts are a fast, fun and simple way to do that.”

IT specialist Adelaide Nascimento says the OMG! podcasts “shot to the top of the iTunes store rankings in China” shortly after their introduction. Nascimento, who works at the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ office of Digital Design and Innovation, says other VOA Mandarin Service programs have also done well. “Offering our content through the iTunes store in a branded and professional way is a great opportunity to grow our audience,” she says.

In addition to OMG! Meiyu, Voice of America has an expanding list of news and language teaching programs available through iTunes. OMG! podcasts are also available on the VOA Mandarin Service website, YouTube and through an OMG! iPhone app. VOA Chinese TV and audio programs are also available on a “VOA News Chinese” iPhone App.

For more information about this release contact Kyle B. King at the VOA Public Relations office in Washington at kking@voanews.com. For more about any of our programs visit our main website at www.voanews.com.