Not only has the charity single version of Nick Clegg’s tuition fees pledge apology been the surprise hit of the year, entering the Top 40 download chart, but The Poke‘s video has now been viewed more than 1.8 million times on YouTube.

From The Wall blog:

James Herring, of PR firm Taylor Herring which worked with the The Poke on the autotuned story (and has done since The Poke launched two years ago), says that Clegg was such an easy target that the opportunity was simply too good to miss.

“We worked through the night to create the mash up which was released 15 hours after the initial speech was made, the video going live the following day on Thursday morning. By Friday lunchtime Clegg had given us permission to release the song as a single which was hugely exciting but somewhat daunting given that none of us had any idea how to go about this process.
“To cut a long story short, we finally found a senior manager at iTunes in the US who had seen all the media coverage who agreed to fast track the release. “The huge success of the campaign has taken everyone by surprise – it’s one thing to get a million views on YouTube, but quite another to have landed a place in the top 40 download chart 24 hours after the video release!”

The Voice’s Paul Walter has already blogged three amazing days in the life of an internet video; remember you can still download the song from iTunes, with profits going to Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity.