Post popping my Edinburgh TV festival cherry last weekend, I was left under an oppressive cloud of thoughts about convergence, fragmentation, HD and series stacking (amongst other things). I was surprised and relieved, therefore, to have a slightly depressing Larkin poem come to mind mid week to offer some clarity and solace to my web/tv tension headache.
For those of you who don't remember your O-level English Lit. or equivalent, the following are a few lines from Dockery and Son where Larkin decries his ex-schoolmate (Dockery)'s perceived insistence on having kids (the son of the title),
"Convinced he was he should be added to!
Why did he think adding
meant increase? To me it was dilution."
After spending a weekend with a bunch of telly folks, I'd say there are slightly more Larkins than Dockerys in tv still pondering a similar question; are new platforms and technologies adding to tv or are they just diluting attention spans, budgets and audiences?
The idealistic and more vocal Dockerys will cry that of course new ways of receiving programmes mean we can reach new audiences in new ways, "look at the iplayer!" their rallying cry. And Peter Fincham's MacTaggart lecture was enormously comforting - pointing out the enduring popularity of Saturday night shows like X Factor, and containing views about TV's vitality I largely concur with (as well as one of my gags),
"The experience of new mediums is that they don’t usually displace the existing ones. Everybody has to move up a bit, but there’s more room on the bench than you thought. Cinema didn’t kill theatre, television didn’t do for cinema, video didn’t even kill the radio stars."
Back to Larkin on such potent positivity, however,
" ...Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors."
Well no one exposed themselves as an out and out Larkin (ok, I did hear one tv poppet drunkenly shouting "The Long Tail is shit!" at about 2 am on Sunday morning). Most accept that the future is here - content is already on demand, attention is already fragmented - so we may as well make a fist of it.
My own inner Larkin came out, however, during a session that I should have been inspired by, The Viral Grand Prix. Peter Bazalgette - a TV Dockery if ever there was one given his involvement in myvideorights.com - ended up giving an example of how a production company might be able to make literally pennies (his word) from plundering their archives for clips of frogs shagging (seriously, also his example). It was at that point the real problem that should have been tackled during the conference was highlighted for me (although I must say the panel's po-faced nodding in agreement about the money to be made from copulating amphibians was an unexpected highlight).
Pennies? How do we make programmes like The Qur'an with pennies? A clip of frogs shagging? Is that what Life in Cold Blood is reduced to on the world wide web? Bazalgette was making a sound point about small amounts of money from small amounts of content adding up to make something that could help generate cash, but it felt more like a storecard points system than a serious revenue stream.
When later in the same session the Viral Grand Prix winner was also revealed to have been voted by a landslide of clicks and views to be a man repeatedly asking to be - and getting - kicked in the nuts, you do start to question rather than want to embrace the wisdom of crowds, don't you?
Enabling and harnessing the potential creativity of the world to fuel, fund, create and share innovative audio-visual content in a rapidly changing media landscape is the challenge. The fear remains, however, that whilst the old order crumbles, the new order is building a solution based on fucking frogs and bollock baiting.
Clay Shirky went some way to address these fears during his Futureview address (great explanation from Matt on the 4iP blog), explaining that content creation can be faster, cheaper, more authentic and differently filtered by using principles inherent to the web. I'm with him all the way, but I still think that this doesn't necessarily cover making high-quality compelling audio-visual content for a long while yet - and what programme makers are struggling with is shrinking budgets and the demands of commercial returns right now.
I do believe the question of how we continue to make the serious and sometimes seriously expensive documentaries, experimental films and high-end dramas remains. Or how we fund taking risks on new comedy talent in order to find the next Peter Kay or Ricky Gervais. Large scale popular channels are less able to commission them, and the Internet isn't yet providing them - or will require similar levels of risk and investment to find them. This is why Channel 4's banging on about funding - however hard we're trying in all these new platforms the sums just aren't adding up.
And that's what I hoped would be more of a focus. Are there ways that we can cut costs in production without crippling indies? How are production companies and talent using web principles to fuel their creativity? What is TV's live event revenue stream? How do audiences compare on Bebo for Kate Modern to BBC 3 or E4? How does the advertising revenue compare? What do we think about the dreaded product placement? Are we looking for a short-term fix to a long-term solution that is already playing out? Can you crowd-source a documentary or at the very least its funding? And are there any examples of authentic, high quality content created cost effectively by individuals that do not contain the words "geek" "star wars" or "linux"?
And who on earth is going to answer all these questions? Not a dead, anti-semitic poet, that's for sure.
Later note 01/09: Last night's post was sponsored by nicotine withdrawal. Also cheered up today realising that I think it might be me trying to answer these questions - and it's fun trying (any ideas? - you know where to find me).
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Revelations in the Search for the Elusive Tellyweb
Last week I spent four days on a residential workshop that brought together tv commissioners, producers and a bunch of content geeks (new media design, editorial and tech folk). The aim was to aid all our understanding of what makes brilliant, impactful multiplatform projects or, in E4 speak, the "tellyweb".
Each day left me exhausted and a little frustrated but always inspired, resulting in lots of late night scribbling of variously deranged thoughts - of which a selection follows.
Day 1: Content geeks are a bunch of bone-banging monkeys
So I’m a couple of glasses of white rioja in, and I confess to the people that commissioned the likes of Green Wing and Cutting Edge how exciting I found the recent introduction of user comments to Big Brother news articles and photos. I could hear the crackle as the glaze set on their eyes. Even my head was nodding a little before I reached the end of my own sentence.
Yes, my pedestrian example of an interactive feature is particular to my role and the challenges within it, but when I'm still getting excited about basic functionality it really highlights how hard it can be to produce sophisticated, large-scale interactive entertainment across platforms.
But you know what, the Roundhay Garden Scene isn't exactly The Sopranos now is it? But it was the first step in the evolution of audio-visual entertainment.
We just have to accept that on an evolutionary scale of online media us content geeks aren't single-celled, but we're still not all that far up the chain; remember Youtube was only formed in 2005. So er ... throw us a bone.
Day 3: To have a hit musical sometimes a fat transvestite has to do unspeakable things
Oh how they frowned as ARGs were explained, how they laughed as we described how and why we use Twitter (renamed “Dribble” by one wag); it really was a struggle to get people to understand the more fringe of our online activities. For example, red-faced and mumbling, I might as well have been a teenager explaining masturbation: “It [Twitter]’s good, not sure if it's good for me... Quite addictive really... Sometimes I have to force myself not to be on it so much.”
Then I received Divine inspiration – yes, that one – the dead, fat fabulous transvestite diva star of stage and screen and John Waters' movies.
It occurred to me that Hairspray is a multi-award winning musical on screen, West End and Broadway as well as a remade hit movie, but that’s not where director John Waters started out. Would Waters have got where he is, entertaining and enlightening millions of people and making millions of dollars, without having once made that [WARNING! this is gross] infamous scene from Pink Flamingos? I for one say no.
It's accepted that every creative medium needs the fringe movements and esoteric works in order to push the boundaries of what can be achieved within their genre – and online is no exception especially in (fast developing) forms. Participation in Virtual worlds or ARGs, even just publishing photos of yourself or your opinions on the web can be hard for people to comprehend, but that doesn't mean they're not worthwhile activities or are always destined for minority audiences.
Day 4: Creativity is polyamorous
Not a defence of any sexual incontinence, more an observation that by the end of the week it was obvious that what mattered most were ideas and creativity and how new technology and platforms afforded more and better opportunities to express those ideas. I truly believe that really creative people can apply their skills on any number of platforms with a bit more knowledge, experience and confidence.
I see evidence of this in projects like filmmaker, artist and author Miranda July and fellow polymath Harrell Fletcher's Learning to Love You More project which is not only a website but also a book, a touring exhibition, and radio broadcasts. Or in the daft works of Adam Buxton who, after pushing the boundaries on TV, has continued to do so online in his Youtube channel, even if that is sometimes with meat products.
In conclusion
It was a great experience and a salutory lesson in how cynics can become advocates with the right information and environment. It was also a great help for the likes of me to understand more about television processes and people. And finally, I learnt that us content geeks may well be a bunch of fat, polyamorous transvestite monkeys - but we're evolving at an amazing rate.
Each day left me exhausted and a little frustrated but always inspired, resulting in lots of late night scribbling of variously deranged thoughts - of which a selection follows.
Day 1: Content geeks are a bunch of bone-banging monkeys
So I’m a couple of glasses of white rioja in, and I confess to the people that commissioned the likes of Green Wing and Cutting Edge how exciting I found the recent introduction of user comments to Big Brother news articles and photos. I could hear the crackle as the glaze set on their eyes. Even my head was nodding a little before I reached the end of my own sentence.
Yes, my pedestrian example of an interactive feature is particular to my role and the challenges within it, but when I'm still getting excited about basic functionality it really highlights how hard it can be to produce sophisticated, large-scale interactive entertainment across platforms.
But you know what, the Roundhay Garden Scene isn't exactly The Sopranos now is it? But it was the first step in the evolution of audio-visual entertainment.
We just have to accept that on an evolutionary scale of online media us content geeks aren't single-celled, but we're still not all that far up the chain; remember Youtube was only formed in 2005. So er ... throw us a bone.
Day 3: To have a hit musical sometimes a fat transvestite has to do unspeakable things
Oh how they frowned as ARGs were explained, how they laughed as we described how and why we use Twitter (renamed “Dribble” by one wag); it really was a struggle to get people to understand the more fringe of our online activities. For example, red-faced and mumbling, I might as well have been a teenager explaining masturbation: “It [Twitter]’s good, not sure if it's good for me... Quite addictive really... Sometimes I have to force myself not to be on it so much.”
Then I received Divine inspiration – yes, that one – the dead, fat fabulous transvestite diva star of stage and screen and John Waters' movies.
It occurred to me that Hairspray is a multi-award winning musical on screen, West End and Broadway as well as a remade hit movie, but that’s not where director John Waters started out. Would Waters have got where he is, entertaining and enlightening millions of people and making millions of dollars, without having once made that [WARNING! this is gross] infamous scene from Pink Flamingos? I for one say no.
It's accepted that every creative medium needs the fringe movements and esoteric works in order to push the boundaries of what can be achieved within their genre – and online is no exception especially in (fast developing) forms. Participation in Virtual worlds or ARGs, even just publishing photos of yourself or your opinions on the web can be hard for people to comprehend, but that doesn't mean they're not worthwhile activities or are always destined for minority audiences.
Day 4: Creativity is polyamorous
Not a defence of any sexual incontinence, more an observation that by the end of the week it was obvious that what mattered most were ideas and creativity and how new technology and platforms afforded more and better opportunities to express those ideas. I truly believe that really creative people can apply their skills on any number of platforms with a bit more knowledge, experience and confidence.
I see evidence of this in projects like filmmaker, artist and author Miranda July and fellow polymath Harrell Fletcher's Learning to Love You More project which is not only a website but also a book, a touring exhibition, and radio broadcasts. Or in the daft works of Adam Buxton who, after pushing the boundaries on TV, has continued to do so online in his Youtube channel, even if that is sometimes with meat products.
In conclusion
It was a great experience and a salutory lesson in how cynics can become advocates with the right information and environment. It was also a great help for the likes of me to understand more about television processes and people. And finally, I learnt that us content geeks may well be a bunch of fat, polyamorous transvestite monkeys - but we're evolving at an amazing rate.
Monday, March 17, 2008
4IP: A Shot in the Arm (the good inoculation kind) for British media
Last week two instances proved beyond reasonable doubt that I have spent too much time reading celebrity nonsense:
1. For a split second I believed that leading lutist, tantric sex (find your own link) fan and lead singer of The Police, Sting, had become some sort of moral vigilante. I am an idiot.
2. When trying to come up with a decent analogy for the state of the British TV broadcasting industry, my first port of call was Amy Winehouse. Again.
I'm still an idiot, but there's something there. A dependency on decreasing TV ad revenues may mean that quality and creativity will be departing the ludicrously talented world of British broadcasting whilst all the exciting stuff happens online.
Which is why I was more than pleased to hear about my employer - Channel 4 - 's commitment to new platforms (details in chapter 4) outlined in last Thursday's Next on 4 announcements especially in the shape of the £50m 4IP fund.
It's great to think that this cash will ensure that the UK population has a voice on this global stage, that our talent and ideas are nurtured, that our voices are heard, and that our lives benefit from the kind of mobilisation and amplification that online platforms specialize in.
Most of all I hope it will ensure that Channel 4 continues to appeal to the audiences we work best for, and that our creativity is pushed and increased with this whole raft of new tools to play with.
In the Guardian podcast, Emily Bell said something like "how you feel about this depends entirely on how you feel about Channel 4". My understanding of the findings of our research was that overwhelmingly, people do believe that Channel 4 is a good thing, and that it does have a role to play on platforms other than traditional broadcast TV.
Do read the report, watch the videos (last Q&A clip quite entertaining) , and let me know what you think.
1. For a split second I believed that leading lutist, tantric sex (find your own link) fan and lead singer of The Police, Sting, had become some sort of moral vigilante. I am an idiot.
2. When trying to come up with a decent analogy for the state of the British TV broadcasting industry, my first port of call was Amy Winehouse. Again.
I'm still an idiot, but there's something there. A dependency on decreasing TV ad revenues may mean that quality and creativity will be departing the ludicrously talented world of British broadcasting whilst all the exciting stuff happens online.
Which is why I was more than pleased to hear about my employer - Channel 4 - 's commitment to new platforms (details in chapter 4) outlined in last Thursday's Next on 4 announcements especially in the shape of the £50m 4IP fund.
It's great to think that this cash will ensure that the UK population has a voice on this global stage, that our talent and ideas are nurtured, that our voices are heard, and that our lives benefit from the kind of mobilisation and amplification that online platforms specialize in.
Most of all I hope it will ensure that Channel 4 continues to appeal to the audiences we work best for, and that our creativity is pushed and increased with this whole raft of new tools to play with.
In the Guardian podcast, Emily Bell said something like "how you feel about this depends entirely on how you feel about Channel 4". My understanding of the findings of our research was that overwhelmingly, people do believe that Channel 4 is a good thing, and that it does have a role to play on platforms other than traditional broadcast TV.
Do read the report, watch the videos (last Q&A clip quite entertaining) , and let me know what you think.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Remind me, video didn't actually *kill* the radio star, did it?
The other day a colleague (Richard) and I were trying to figure out which media had been killed by a successive media, or at least died due to related neglect.
I ventured the Mystery Play - but then discovered that the Guilds of York will be staging some in 2010. He got as far as audio cassette tapes - but we agreed that was a technology, not a medium.
What with us working for Channel 4 and everything, sometimes you do feel the fear - can it really be true that TV is dead?
So as I headed to the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting conference at the beginning of this week, I was hoping for some insights as to what fate has in store for TV.
Unfortunately as I turned to my notes to report back my findings, I seem to have scribbled down mostly comments that I disagreed with. For example, the excellent Blake Chandlee of Facebook stated,
I ventured the Mystery Play - but then discovered that the Guilds of York will be staging some in 2010. He got as far as audio cassette tapes - but we agreed that was a technology, not a medium.
What with us working for Channel 4 and everything, sometimes you do feel the fear - can it really be true that TV is dead?
So as I headed to the FT Digital Media and Broadcasting conference at the beginning of this week, I was hoping for some insights as to what fate has in store for TV.
Unfortunately as I turned to my notes to report back my findings, I seem to have scribbled down mostly comments that I disagreed with. For example, the excellent Blake Chandlee of Facebook stated,
"Content is what your family and friends are doing."
The way I see it, my mum isn't doing Jamie at Home any more than I did Atonement at the weekend. Yes, I realise Blake was talking from Facebook's point of view, but remember I'm looking for a diagnosis of a problem before fate deals its cruel blow and this seemed at odds with the content that the likes of Channel 4 bangs out.
And then there was Andreas Mueller-Schubert of Microsoft, again talking only really for Microsoft when he said,
"TV is no longer just a device, it's a new digital service to personalize."
Come off it - TV has been an educator, an entertainer, a piece of furniture, a friend, a pacifier, an anaesthetic even ... but just a device? Never! And now it's a new digital service to personalize is it? Well that makes it sound about as fun as an over-featured microwave. Is that really how people feel about Midsomer Murders?
After a while I did wonder whether the conference should have been renamed as something more like "stuff that digital media and broadcasters might want to think about or have been worrying they should probably at least look up", as even excellent chair Richard Waters, was moved early on to say,
Come off it - TV has been an educator, an entertainer, a piece of furniture, a friend, a pacifier, an anaesthetic even ... but just a device? Never! And now it's a new digital service to personalize is it? Well that makes it sound about as fun as an over-featured microwave. Is that really how people feel about Midsomer Murders?
After a while I did wonder whether the conference should have been renamed as something more like "stuff that digital media and broadcasters might want to think about or have been worrying they should probably at least look up", as even excellent chair Richard Waters, was moved early on to say,
"You thought you were coming to a media conference and you have to listen to a lot of talk about tagging."
That's not to say I spent the entire two days seething at semantics: David Moody of the BBC imparted some invaluable wisdom to any broadcaster based on their experience with the iplayer and the impact of distribution; Ron Galloway was very accessible and entertaining on the semantic web (and may be available for weddings and barmitzvahs his patter is so slick); and it was a shame that Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger on Search was in the conference graveyard slot (the last session on the last day) - speaking of both how search engines and data privacy handling need to be tackled with the memorable line,
That's not to say I spent the entire two days seething at semantics: David Moody of the BBC imparted some invaluable wisdom to any broadcaster based on their experience with the iplayer and the impact of distribution; Ron Galloway was very accessible and entertaining on the semantic web (and may be available for weddings and barmitzvahs his patter is so slick); and it was a shame that Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger on Search was in the conference graveyard slot (the last session on the last day) - speaking of both how search engines and data privacy handling need to be tackled with the memorable line,
"We forget, Google remembers."
I was also really sad to have missed Nova Spivack, of whom I heard great reports.
The absolute highlight for me was Moray MacLennan, Chairman Europe of M&C Saatchi. The quality of his presentation and analysis left me stimulated, ever-so-slightly reassured and, well, with a bit of a crush actually.
I loved, for example, how MacLennan expressed the way that ad agencies should feel about the mix of media that they have to play with as,
I was also really sad to have missed Nova Spivack, of whom I heard great reports.
The absolute highlight for me was Moray MacLennan, Chairman Europe of M&C Saatchi. The quality of his presentation and analysis left me stimulated, ever-so-slightly reassured and, well, with a bit of a crush actually.
I loved, for example, how MacLennan expressed the way that ad agencies should feel about the mix of media that they have to play with as,
"I was drawing in black and white and now I can paint in colour."
MacLennan was a part of the strongest panel of the two days, "Innovating Revenue: The Future of Advertising" which featured Hamish Pringle of the IPA, Melanie Howard of the The Future Foundation and oh yeah, my mate Fergus of Nooked who had invited me along to the conference.
The whole panel embraced all the right digital goodness (widgets, games etc.), whilst accepting that you don't want "engagement" and "a conversation" with every brand (MacLennan stating his toilet roll brand as not one he would be befriending on Facebook) and that there will always be a place for down-time content that's all "done" for you, which was certainly backed up by Future Foundation research that Howard referred to.
And as the title of this post suggests, I don't think video killed the radio star, you know, but I'll concede it did signficantly alter his or her place in the media firmament.
I'm not being curmudgeonly or naive. Just as email led to the demise of snail mail and the marginalisation of the personal letter or card but not the end to personal correspondence, maybe Youtube heralded the start of the end of the tv set - maybe even the tv station or channel as we know them - but not TV in the sense I think we all understand it - well made audio-visual content that we can sit back and enjoy in our living rooms traditionally, but now wherever we might want a screen - bedroom, study, or hand.
What we've got to figure out is what place social networks, widgets, pvrs etc. have in our lives - and therefore the media landscape, but wisely assuming that some of the old ways and means will endure and emerge with new ways to reach audiences.
MacLennan was a part of the strongest panel of the two days, "Innovating Revenue: The Future of Advertising" which featured Hamish Pringle of the IPA, Melanie Howard of the The Future Foundation and oh yeah, my mate Fergus of Nooked who had invited me along to the conference.
The whole panel embraced all the right digital goodness (widgets, games etc.), whilst accepting that you don't want "engagement" and "a conversation" with every brand (MacLennan stating his toilet roll brand as not one he would be befriending on Facebook) and that there will always be a place for down-time content that's all "done" for you, which was certainly backed up by Future Foundation research that Howard referred to.
And as the title of this post suggests, I don't think video killed the radio star, you know, but I'll concede it did signficantly alter his or her place in the media firmament.
I'm not being curmudgeonly or naive. Just as email led to the demise of snail mail and the marginalisation of the personal letter or card but not the end to personal correspondence, maybe Youtube heralded the start of the end of the tv set - maybe even the tv station or channel as we know them - but not TV in the sense I think we all understand it - well made audio-visual content that we can sit back and enjoy in our living rooms traditionally, but now wherever we might want a screen - bedroom, study, or hand.
What we've got to figure out is what place social networks, widgets, pvrs etc. have in our lives - and therefore the media landscape, but wisely assuming that some of the old ways and means will endure and emerge with new ways to reach audiences.
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