“The people formerly known as the audience wish to inform media people of our existence, and of a shift in power that goes with the platform shift you’ve all heard about.” – Jay Rosen, June 30th, 2006
Television, like other entertainment and media, is in shake-up mode. Viewers are no longer content to watch, they’ve gained the means to speak about and direct what’s on.
What is TV2.0?
Web2.0 interaction, collaboration and sharing have come to TV. Television 2.0 involves the convergence of creators and viewers, on multiple platforms. Geographic location no longer matters, interactive communication does, and different mediums overlap – your computer, your television and your mobile device.
TV viewing is on the same path of increasing interaction as other media:
- Passive – Watching TV
- Self-serve – Amazon, iTunes. TiVo
- Do-it-yourself – YouTube, re-editing film
- Co-participation – Reality television, American Idol
- Co-creation/crowdsourcing. Viacom’s Show us your Junk, Dove’s Waking up Hannah, NY 1
The evolution isn’t just driven by viewers, networks want change too. Television producers are looking for ways to reduce the cost of creative, increase the success rate of new shows and sustain hit shows for as long possible. Winning viewers today takes a lot more than picking the right time to air a show. Now, fans participate online by submitting favorite moments, voting on the previous week’s top tens, commenting on blogs and in forums, signing up for news via text alerts and playing games involving the content of the show. Broadcasters are moving in the right direction, but we’re only halfway there.
Here are some thoughts on how we believe people TV could work in the future:
- Your children run into the house and continue watching the movie from where it left off in the car.
- You rate as you watch and are served stuff that is similar or opposite, like last.fm for video/tv
- You or your kids, or their fanatic film friends will compete in contests to create the next episode, trailer or script for your favourite show
- Creators in video hubs like YouTube and Vimeo, will get contacted by mega networks to invest in and co-create films and TV series
- You will have a say in top news stories picking what gets covered by networks nightly, hourly – perhaps bringing mega broadcast reach to citizen journalists
- Networks will grab the longtail, pushing cult favourites they used to drop to video hubs where they can make the costs make sense
What else do you think will change?
photo by: Aaron Escobar
