The following is my proposal for the second part of my major project and it’s final resolution before a written evaluation and reccomendation of the process;
Executive Summary
The 21st Century is without doubt an age of technological innovation, progression and intervention. Ideas which were once mere dreams fifty years ago are not only becoming a reality today, but far exceed the potentials first imagined, none less so then the Internet and the World Wide Web. This interactive and engaging platform has changed the way we look at communications, marketing, knowledge sharing, and broadcasting to name but a few fields. Even though great leaps have been made, there are still huge gaps and pockets for improvement and growth. At this stage in time, with broadband being readily available to most homes at a low cost, broadcasters have been looking at the possibilities of a cross platform production, even producing specifically for the Internet1. Several television shows have branched out onto social networks such as MySpace as a platform to create social groups interested in their shows. None however have unlocked the true potential within these existing social networks to their full capacity.
Using MySpace as an example, the initial concept for this proposal is to take an existing television show2 from a company and develop the program and its audience online. Specific characters (those who are likely to use the web) would have a MySpace account created for them. Primarily this would include such information as their statistics, interests, and photo’s of them, but would develop to include alternative and complimentary plot strands through written and video blogs and a space for the fans to leave their own comments about how they feel the character should act or react upon certain situations in the show. The program respectively would have a production page account on MySpace, where the audience could directly interact with the Producers and also comment on other aspects of the show as well as having privileged access to exclusive material. Thus this initially extends the boundary of reality by creating an interactive and almost ‘as live’ space for the characters to exist out of the television show, and also forms a podium from which the audience can engage and contribute to the creation of the program. Hence the audience feels they’re apart of these characters lives, and the producers of the show get direct feedback from the audience engaging with the character and not to the creator. The prospective result is to increase the audience of the program, to attract more funding for its development, and to build an audience who are less passive and far more involved with the show. Star Trek3 started as a television show, and gained cult status with conventions and franchises all across the world. Imagine the possibility if they could have delved even deeper into the show……….
Relevant Background Information
Recent research has shown how big television has become. It is estimated that 98% of households in the USA (Montgomery County Public School) and 25.3 million households in the UK (Which.com) owned at least one television, and of this more then three quarters, 77.2%, had some form of digital access in 2006. These figures have no doubt increased. Television is a major form of home entertainment due to its low cost, easy access, and diversity and range of content. Taking soap operas in the UK as an example, on Christmas day of 2006, Eastenders on BBC1 attracted more then 10 million viewers, while more recently Coronation Street on ITV1, due to a recent plot strand, has managed almost 12 million viewers (2nd week of April – digitalspy.com)4.
Interestingly at the turn of the 21st century, the Government reported (statistics.gov.uk) that the average time spent watching television, DVD’s or videos was somewhere in the region of 2 hours a day in the UK. In comparison a study carried out by Google, as reported by the Guardian March 2006 (technology.guardian.co.uk), stated that Britons spent more time on the Internet then watching the television with users in London spending more then three hours a day surfing the web. The article also states that the Internet boomed much faster then television and now more then 1 billion people world wide are connected. All of these figures alone show how hungry we as a population are to be entertained, informed and educated through different mediums, but also how we seek control and greater choice in our viewing options5. Online social networking sites have only been around for little over ten years, and are one of the main reasons why people are regularly online. However communication platforms such as emails, bulletin boards, forums and other types of communication have been around a lot longer. It was the onset of the home computer revolution6 (early to late 90’s), where owning a desktop computer became a necessity to the everyday man, that such social networking sites began to appear. One of the earliest centered around schools entitled classmates.com. In 1996 some Harvard Graduates launched PlanetAll which was more of a social address book but had ‘friend’ features. It wasn’t until the advent of the 21st Century that such sites as Where Are You Now, Friends Reunited, Hi5, Facebook, Friendster and MySpace were launched. Each site was focused on networking you and your buddies together ensuring a way of not only communicating but also sharing your own interests and effectively your life online for the world to view. It was MySpace (launched in 2003) however which really caught on with youth culture and beyond, as it sold itself as your piece of the Internet, your place to express yourself and show others what you were about. At the point of writing, MySpace had 175,030,590 people, bands, companies, fictional characters and so forth signed up to it. If little over a billion people are connected to the Internet, this figure would suggest that more then a tenth of Internet users are on MySpace. With the onset of free video sharing from the likes of YouTube, Google Video and Yahoo Video, it’s also no surprise audiences are shifting to the Internet. But where are the potential gaps and how has it all developed? Big Brother7 (2000-present) was a big step in audience interaction and online usage. It initially offered the viewer the chance to be one of the stars of the show who would be watched 24 hours a day. Then via the Internet you could watch almost live (15 second delay with censorship where necessary) streaming of the house 24 hours a day. Nothing like this over such a long period of time had been done before and it changed the way broadcasters were thinking. This idea has now become a universal one with the Big Brother format springing up in most major countries. Over the years Big Brother has developed further by creating spin off shows such as Big Brothers Little Brother and Big Brothers Big Mouth, which encourage the audience to interact and voice their opinion about what is going on in the house. This was the first major step of moving from being a passive audience to an interactive one, which was nothing like a game or chat show. The additional programs complemented and followed the actions of the house for a number of weeks.
The MySpace link was brought to light when a TV show entitled Skins, on Channel 4 in the UK, was aired in early 2007. The show was a short series about youth culture, focusing on a small group of young individuals. The offered link to MySpace produced a homepage for Skins as a program, which was very well created, and aesthetically pleasing. This page included exclusive content and the ability for viewers and fans to leave comments in the ‘comment’ box. Its main purpose was an online advert for Skins at a time when youth culture and the Internet blended in8. Alternatively the top friends were the characters of the show, which meant they each had pages as well, not for the actors but for the characters. This was a rather unique notion.
Following the link to the character pages, it appeared that each character had designed their own page suitable to their own interests and styles. They had put up their own pictures and written a little about themselves. This however seems as far as the promotional teams were willing to go, and although there is space for the audience and fans to leave comments for them, the boundary of reality hasn’t really been breached. In fact what makes it even less realistic is the promotion video for Skins on each character page which would suggest that this was simply a marketing tool and why the homepage may have some 50,000 friends, but the leading character has only 6,000 friends. As the character pages have been neglected to update over the homepage it also doesn’t attract people to become friends with the fictional characters for any more reason then to see and meet other people with similar opinions as they have, found in the comment boxes. Where the light had been cast, there must have been other examples or variations of the idea. The Simpson’s, a cult American animated sitcom had a page, and again its main use is advertising, but in difference it has forum topics for its audience to look into and comment on. This page currently has more then 95,000 friends. Not surprisingly, many of the hit US dramas which are reaching the shores of the UK have MySpace pages9 such as Prison Break (54,000 friends), 24 (138,000 friends), Family Guy (875,000 friends), and American Dad (18,000 friends). The UK however seems to have failed to catch the bug on MySpace at least, as none of the major programs have adopted a page although fans have created their own (Coronation Street Fans as an example). All the US show pages do seem to lack the interaction and contribution from the audience that this proposal is suggesting as well as the meta-level of creating a space for the characters to exist outside of the show they came from (more then just interests and a few pictures). Any character pages found were generally of the same format to the show page, may contain forum areas but were little more then online advertising space.
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Prom Queen TV has developed the notion slightly further. In itself it is a production created for the Internet and comes in daily bite sized chunks of about 90 seconds. This brevity works well for those with short attention spans or people who are always on the go. It has its own homepage and is sponsored by a forthcoming movie that is due to hit the cinemas in July of this year. What’s fascinating about this is that all the characters have a MySpace page, but the characters then actually blog and video blog (only very briefly) stuff that is going on in their lives in the show, and in one instance Michele is asking for her friends opinion (the audience) to choose which bikini she should wear to a party, and people have actually commented. This is the ice breaker, however the show itself is only broadcasted over the Internet and subscribers get the show sent to their inboxes, it’s not as big a show as any of the dramas, sitcoms or soaps that exist. What this shows MySpace pages lack is plot development or alternative plot strands, and as it has been running for several weeks now there is very little development on the pages10. Returning full circle, Project MyWorld11 is a reality show created for the small screen (DirectTV) and marketed through MySpace. It follows three girls (all who have MySpace pages) who travel to Europe looking to meet their MySpace friends, looking for love, and looking for adventure. Not only has this taken the concept of MySpace to television, but uses MySpace to then blog and post pictures of what they have been up to as well as screen the different episodes of their antics. Their page acts as both a personal and production page which crosses the two initially discussed scenarios together (and as it’s a reality show, this is a relevant way to approaching this). They are currently advertising through the site to get a new member of the public to join the cast and to travel to the next destination to do the same thing again. Project MyWorld currently has more then 12,000 friends. All of the given examples shown on television are successful shows. Figures indicate an idea of how big the audience, or a cult following these shows attract. The MySpace friends numbers may only be a fraction of fans who have joined up, but given there was something more on the page, especially exclusive content or complimentary content that is required to be watched in order to understand what is happening on the television show, wouldn’t more people be encouraged to join?
MySpace therefore works on several levels.
- It acts as an advertisement for the shows, but not like a pop up or banner, a fan would have to be searching for it to find it.
- It allows for people with similar interests to join in as friends on the page interact with each other.
- In some instances you get a little more character development through the interests section.
- It allows comments to be made about the show, characters and other thoughts the audience may have.
- Forums have been set up on some MySpace accounts allowing more developed discussions to take place.
- Limited exclusive material has been posted on some sites, through blobs, vlogs, videos and pictures. There is massive potential here to take on board all of these different experiments and to develop it into something which works on both television and web based interfaces simultaneously, especially since there is very little competition at this stage, so to innovate now would be perfect timing. Where the show would stand alone on the television, the web allows for interaction to take place and this should be taken advantage of in its full capacity12 to increase interest, to increase the fan base and to extend the boundaries of reality.
Proposal Building upon the existing ideas I propose that a television program is chosen, one which is either brand new or in its infancy. Due to the new premise of having to travel between TV and Internet to get the full content of the show, an existing audience of a long running program may not accept such an idea until the notion has become more common. Characters should then be carefully chosen to initially reflect those who would actually use the Internet and sign up to such social networks. Otherwise you would to be bombarded by every characters additional stories and information, but a selection would allow the audience to concentrate on maybe their favorite characters or a specific plot strand. Pages would then be created in due time before the next season of the show arrives, and each page will reflect the individuals style and interests.
To fill the market gap; as previously mentioned most existing examples stop at the above. The proposed idea is to now develop an online existence for each chosen character;
- personal pictures rather then stock photos will comprise their albums.
- blogs will contribute to their thoughts in the program and also include additional plot strands which may contribute to existing plots or act as subplots and stand respectively.
- video blogs will also act as mini episodes.
- the homepage MySpace site for the show will then have links to these characters and exclusive episodes of the show.
- the imperative difference will be that these sites are regularly updated and edited to not only suite the needs of characters and relate to what is going on in their lives, but to ensure the audience returns time and time again to see the pages and to gain additional information.
- to some extent replies could be made to certain suggestions by the character (although once in full capacity it may be too difficult to maintain).
- friends (fans) who join both styles of pages may then contribute by suggesting how the character should react or how the show should develop.
- even more exclusive would be ‘what if….’episodes which would be uploaded during holiday seasons such as Christmas, Easter, Summer or after a really gritty or dramatic plotline or cliffhanger, in lines with the suggestions made by the fans, to not only show would could have happened to but also show appreciation to the fans ideas.
This of course would require a team of dedicated web enthusiasts and other roles who work closely alongside the production of the television show. A separate team to writers would branch off to provide the additional storylines and content for blogs etc. Actors would be requested to do extra photo shoots and film shoots also to assist in the production of this content. The aim is to create a synergistic effect between the television and the Internet which encourages the audience to interact and become part of the show, as the show becomes a greater part of their lives. In essence, with the right marketing before everything would be launched, you would also be targeting not only all those who don’t currently use social networks or the Internet even, but also a fresh market entirely who may have never seen the show or had such an experience. What this would be creating is a very different experience of interactive multimedia.
Given that Chalkhill Lives, (as mentioned in the notes during the introduction to this proposal) is used as either a case study for this or as a live example, with the show preparing to move into it’s third season in July it would be essential to begin immediately, setting up the initial parameters and getting the new teams in place who would be responsible for maintaining and providing content for such an initiative. Primary character pages with some historical content of the past seasons should be ready before the show is launched, along with outlines for subplots and cross over between the two mediums. The results will be measured by the number of people viewing the page, number of people adding the individual pages as ‘friends’ and the amount of comments left. Along with viewing figures for the show, if ten percent of the audience were interacting with the web based content we would be on the right tracks. We would then need to build upon this to not only sustain the existing audience on the cross platform, but to also encourage more to join in.
In the early stages of success other shows may feed into the idea to boost their audience ratings and to also include the interactive element. One of the benefits of this initiative is its universal and global appeal, and the fact that it’s transferable to a wide variety of shows with consistent and fictional characters. What may occur from this is an alternative for other non-fiction shows to follow a similar pattern that at this stage cannot be seen. Ultimately in fiction, it may come to the point where characters from one show could hypothetically be interacting with characters from another show in the virtual online world, and this major possibility creates a whole host of new ideas. There is room for growth and as MySpace also develops, so will these pages. The attraction of such a new concept would also deliver sponsorship through advertising on not only the television but the Internet as well as viewing numbers increase due to the interactive aspect, the contribution feature to the show and the impression that by moving the boundary of reality for these characters, they will become even closer to the audience, and more accessible.
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Conclusion Funding will be required to set up the addition teams necessary for such a project. With regards to Chalkhill Lives, given it was a profit making organization, the following additional staff may be required;- up to four additional script writers- an additional director, cameraman, sound operator, lighting, photographer and post production role- two web designers who could easily update the sites regularly- project manager Regular meetings would then need to be set up between the existing writers, cast and crew to follow the similar format of the actual show, and whoever has total creative control would oversee the project above a project manager. Additional equipment will be required as well as an adequate office space to convey both the additional material and to edit and upload the produced material. With the developments of the Internet and television and the eventual crossover to broadband productions for many new programs I am very confident that this proposal has enough scope and longevity to produce a revolution to bridge the gap between the current passive audience and the shows they are watching.
References 24 on MySpace; http://www.myspace.com/24
American Dad on MySpace; http://www.myspace.com/americandad
Barb; http://www.barb.co.uk/viewingsummary/weekreports.cfm?report=multichannel
Big Brother; http://www.channel4.com/bigbrother/index.jsp
Chalkhill Lives; www.chalkhill-lives.co.uk
Classmates; http://www.classmates.com
Coronation Street Fansite; www.myspace.com/coronationstreetfansite
Digital Spy Coronation Street stats; http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a44828/corrie-court-drama-pulls-in-118-million.html
Digital Spy Eastenders stats; http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a27678/eastenders-tops-christmas-day-ratings.html
Do you Myspace?: New York Times; http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/fashion/sundaystyles/28MYSPACE.html?ex=1178251200&en=3f94eabc52553373&ei=5070
Facebook; http://www.facebook.com/
Family Guy on MySpace; http://www.myspace.com/familyguy
Friends Reunited; http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/friendsreunited.asp?WCI=FRMain&show=Y&page=UK&randomiser=7
Friendster; http://www.friendster.com/
Guardian; http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1726018,00.html
Google Video; http://video.google.co.uk/
Government Statistics; http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D6020.xls
Hi5; http://www.hi5.com/
MySpace; www.myspace.com
Prison Break on MySpace; http://www.myspace.com/prisonbreak
Project MyWorld; http://www.myspace.com/projectmyworld
Prom Queen Character Page; http://www.myspace.com/michelebelle89
Prom Queen Home Page; http://www.promqueen.tv/
Prom Queen on MySpace; http://www.myspace.com/promqueentv
Skins; http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/S/skins/index.html
Skins homepage on MySpace; http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=135579552
Star Trek Audience viewing figures; http://www.treknation.com/articles/ratings_history.shtml
Starfleet Internation on Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STARFLEET_International
The Simpsons on MySpace; http://www.myspace.com/thesimpsons
TV stats; www.mcps.k12.md.us/schools/viersmilles/greenl/stats.html
Where Are You Now?; http://www.wayn.com/waynsplash.html?wci=login&
Which.com; http://www.which.com/reports_and_campaigns/audio_visual/reports/television/Digital_TV_2007_report_news_article_557_110918.jsp
Yahoo featured video; http://video.search.yahoo.com/
Youth Internet Usage Statistics, University of Kentucky; http://ces.ca.uky.edu/extension_regions/Technology_Resources/Yth_Internet_Stats_Use.pdf
Youtube; http://www.youtube.com
Please note all footnotes may be found on original documenta, if interested in reading them pleas
