TV
TV & Interactive Creators Beware: Who owns the audience?
Producers, broadcasters and funders are necessarily grappling with the rights and revenues attached to opportunities made possible by digital technology. To date, the discussion has centered primarily around platforms for distribution.
The June 2010 CFTPA (CMPA) research study, “Towards a Framework for Digital Rights” does an excellent job of summarizing challenges and opportunities relative to digital distribution and exploitation. However, the report doesn’t address the capacity of digital technology to transform the role of the audience, or who established a relationship with the audience. That relationship, once the exclusive domain of the broadcaster is now a rich source of content research and development, advance marketing, and testing, all potentially activities undertaken by producers. The extent to which the public can be now be engaged through digital tools right from the start of a program concept opens up questions around the purpose and value of those pre-broadcast relationships and who “owns” them, before, during and after the broadcast.
The People Formerly Known As The Audience.
Prior to the advent of digital technology, the viewing audience “belonged” to the broadcaster. How and when content was made available, and the promotional and sales messaging “pushed” in front of the audience were the levers used by broadcasters to drive revenue.
Mass adoption of the Internet, and particularly web 2.0 platforms, have enabled producers and audiences to engage in two-way conversations separate and apart from any broadcast component. Almost daily, tools are emerging that enable producers to join discussions already taking place about genres or subject matter. Content creators can learn where target audiences are gathering on line, how they like to be engaged, what they care about and what they don’t. When appropriate, content creators can customize their “products” to suit audience demand.
These relationships can help shape creative and foster deep engagement between a program and its audience long before the broadcast release. This early engagement can subsequently influence and improve the commercial success of that release.
Terms of Engagement
The right of the producer to engage existing online audiences and/or to build new groups in a way that helps to shape the very content of a show or series and its success needs to be protected.
Let’s say a specialty network licenses a personal makeover series. During development and pre-production, the producer uses digital tools to attract contestants and to engage existing online groups in the creative process. Contests and voting deepen the engagement and online profile. The producer may want to explore posting video tips and pre-releasing scenes, in order to build a web presence that also increases awareness for the series, and which may also have value as an independent asset.
However, as the program launch nears, the broadcaster will also want to develop or use its existing digital avenues to market and promote the program. The broadcaster may create a web page for the program as part of its larger branded website, as well as creating a Twitter feed and Facebook page even though the project may already have all of those applications in use.
Who Owns the Relationships?
Beyond some tactical issues that emerge with this scenario, it raises important issues about rights. A “database” of contacts developed by the producer during the development of the project may be tremendously valuable. Documentaries based on a “hot” topic, comedies that have managed to create viral videos teasing series’ content, may boast sizable and loyal followings. Who has the right to this “database?” Does the broadcaster “lease” or “license” access to it just as they do with the finished program? How is the value of that pre-built audience established? If social media profiles are established in the process of creating the program, who “owns” those profiles? What happens to the two-way engagement once the broadcast is completed?
While the broadcaster still needs to be in a position to promote a program to its audience, the age of two-way conversations has changed the very definition of “marketing” “content” and “audience.” Building a relationship with an audience is no longer about getting their attention with a good promo. It’s as much about listening to what the audience has to say. Creating engagement strategies require time and expertise that typically go far beyond the scope of the on-air promotions and marketing departments of the broadcaster.
However, if no new language or terms exist, then by default the activity remains with the marketing department even though the very nature of the activity has changed.
Delineating public engagement as an activity that has a much bigger footprint than that traditionally belonging to the marketing department would be an important first step to the future clarification of rights and responsibilities.
The Take Away
Producers are not yet fully exploiting the tools available to engage the audience early on in the production – and some may opt not to use them – ever. However, the activity of interacting directly with the audience needs to be recognized because it’s already valuable and will only become more so.
Engagement of the audience should not default to the broadcaster simply because the value is not yet fully understood and therefore not fully recognized.
At this stage in the evolution of public engagement it is not possible to anticipate all the future implications. However, recognizing at this moment in time that there are digital rights irrespective of distribution, and ensuring that they are non-exclusive to broadcasters will be an important first step for the future.
- Moyra Rodger and Rae Hull
Spilling Your Own Beans
If you took in the big game yesterday you may have noticed that some of the commercials had already created buzz online. Volkswagen’s ads scheduled for release on Super Bowl Sunday were leaked 5 days earlier on YouTube, purposefully.
One day after the Wednesday February 2nd release, the commercials had gone viral – with “The Force” receiving more than one million hits. As I write this post, early Monday morning, the commercial is sitting at 15.5 million hits!
The strategy: by releasing the videos early, Volkswagen was able to engage audiences before the bombardment of other beer, cola or car commercials scheduled to hit the big screen during the game. The timing of the release was perfect. Volkswagen jumped the gun, and stayed one step ahead of the competition.
Pre-released or not, these ads were well received and have been touted some of the most memorable ads of Super Bowl XLV. Thus, showing us, once again – the power of video online. Check them out: “The Force” and “Black Beetle”.
Taylor
Tags: commerical, Super Bowl ad, video, viral video, Volkswagen, youtube
The Future of TV is Online
Canadians are now spending more time on the internet than they are watching TV. More people are now watching TV online or accessing content through channels like Netflix. And I, myself, can often be caught watching TV AND online – at the same time. For me, it just makes sense. I can do two things at once – watch some mindless TV and get my email, Facebook and surf time in.
Companies like Google, Apple and Yahoo have already started to cater to the shift of TV moving online with various partnerships and production of interactive TVs. But before those products hit the shelf, I’ve noticed shows working to bolster their online presence by involving the audience not just through the tube (with a one-way dialogue), but online.
Many news and information shows now flash Facebook and Twitter icons at the end of the show asking you to connect with them online through those channels. Entertainment Tonight, ‘the most watched entertainment news program in the world’, holds daily polls that send TV viewers online (www.etonline.com) to answer, which are revealed at the end of the show. The Biggest Loser, with season highs of 11M viewers, asks viewers to vote online at the end of each season for who they think should win the show.
Huge audiences lend themselves well to involvement and engagement, so why not capitalize on the success online as well? Last weekend the Golden Globes did just that. Watched by 14.6M people, the red carpet awards show shared real-time social media conversations on their website. www.goldenglobes.org prominently featured streamed chat taking place on both Facebook and Twitter.
Until the interactive TVs hit the markets, and gain momentum, I see the marriage of TV and the internet becoming increasingly important and necessary. This trend will force TV programming to find creative ways to involve their audience online. What do you think?
Taylor
Tags: facebook, Golden Globes, interactive TV, internet, Social Media, television, Twitter
Future unFriendly
Louis CK is right: The world is amazing and no one is happy.
This weekend I saw two game-changing videos. One was the Tipp Ex advertisement with the Hunter and the Bear, the other was the Arcade Fire video “The Wilderness Downtown.” One word sums up both of these experiences: Wow.
The Tipp Ex video advertisement is exhaustively interactive. A bear comes upon a hunter – and you, the viewer, decides what happens next. Does the hunter shoot the bear? Dance with the bear? Kiss the bear? You name it. The hunter and the bear do it.
Of course there are limits. And of course, *that* is what people talk about. Forget the fact that there are at least 50 possible outcomes. Forget the fact that this video continues to shoot around the internet at lightning speed and has garnered over 6.5-million views on YouTube in less than 2 weeks. Forget the fact that this is another inspiring example of interactive media, a la Old Spice. Nope. Let’s talk instead about how the words “sew” or “knit” don’t trigger results.
Taking the concept of what a video can be, to another new level is Arcade Fire’s “The Wilderness Downtown”. (You must launch this video on Google Chrome for the full effect.) This interactive video sucks you into the experience in a most intimate way. By incorporating imagery from Google Maps, the street you grew up on becomes part of the video. Not only that, but halfway through this experience, you are prompted to write a note to your younger self, who lived on that street. There are multiple windows opening – with content transferring between them. It is truly remarkable.
Yet when you read people’s reactions online, many complain about their address not working. Or, having seen this done before… it’s nothing new. And therefore..? That takes away from the overall awesomeness? People. Dial back the negative. I think this ambitious interactive experience takes an entire industry of video production to new heights. The potential blows my mind.
In my opinion, these two examples give us a taste of what’s to come. And I, for one, will be greeting that future with a jaw on the floor and an abundance of praise for the very effort.
Tags: Arcade Fire, interactivity, Louis CK, TippEx, video, youtube
Podcast Production Tips – Loud and Clear
I admit it. In the world of $300 camcorders and YouTube videos produced for less than the cost of a Starbucks latte, my view of online audio/video standards may seem prehistoric. I was university educated in radio and television production and have spent twenty years producing big budget, prime time shows, agonizing over every last creative and technical detail.
I not only support, I fully embrace, the DIY spirit of the internet. Chris Anderson’s, “The Long Tail,” redefined my career and was in some ways, the impetus for Magnify Digital. The democratization of content production and distribution is the most exciting evolution in “broadcasting” since cable television.
At the same time, it has resulted in a lot of crap on the internet. That’s why I’m proud to be a dinosaur.
When it comes to using audio and/or video to communicate your company’s, or your client’s, message, professional technical standards need to be observed. It doesn’t matter how clever or compelling your podcast is if your audience can’t hear it, see it clearly, or if it takes too long to load.
In this post, I’ll address the simplest form — the audio podcast. Here are a few tips to help make sure your message is heard.
Tags: audio levels, get focused, prepare, recording, room tone
