Carla Babb's report on John Edwards will air tonight.

But the UNC-Chapel Hill journalism student's piece is probably already the most-watched Carolina Week segment in history, thanks to YouTube.

By Friday morning, her piece had only been viewed about 300 times online. As Dome and the Associated Press reported on it, it slowly moved up to about 2,000 by dinnertime.

Then, in a few short hours, it jumped to 20,000, then 30,000 and finally hit 53,000 shortly before midnight, thanks in part to a link from The Drudge Report.

Over the weekend, the numbers kept accumulating, in part due to coverage in The New York Times and the N&O and links from blogs.

By 10:30 a.m. today, the video had been seen 145,525 times.

An MTV news contest indirectly spurred a tussle between John Edwards and UNC-Chapel Hill's journalism school.

Carla Babb, a graduate student at UNC, posted a news segment for the student-run Carolina Week program on YouTube Tuesday in order to meet the deadline for a "Choose or Lose" contest run by the cable network.

The segment is slated to air Monday, but two Edwards staffers complained when they saw it online.

Professor C.A. Tuggle, who oversees the program and previously worked as a TV reporter in Florida, said the show is normally seen by around 2,000 people, though it airs on cable in 16 counties. He said individual segments, such as one Babb did on state troopers' misconduct, occasionally get up to 1,000 views on YouTube as well.

After they saw the piece, two top Edwards staffers called Tuggle. He said they demanded the piece be pulled and threatening to cut off access for UNC reporters and other student groups.

"My gosh, what are they thinking?" he said. "They're spending this much time and effort on a student newscast that has about 2,000 viewers? They're turning a molehill into a mountain."