Venceremos

From The Independent today…

France and Spain back down on fish discards after internet campaign

MARTIN HICKMAN    MONDAY 19 MARCH 2012

France and Spain today backed down over a plan to carry on throwing dead fish overboard after an internet campaign organised by a television chef.

Prior to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s social networking campaign, the two countries had been hoping to persuade fellow fisheries ministers to sign a declaration opposing a ban on discards, when trawlers exceeding their allowable catch throw back fish into the sea dead.

More than 130,000 Twitter and Facebook messages were sent to ministers urging them to oppose the draft declaration and France and Spain did not insist on a vote. Britain’s fisheries minister Richard Benyon went into the meeting saying he would oppose France and Spain. The EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki now looks likely to phase out discards over four years, by reforming the Common Fisheries Policy in a way that ultimately kills fewer fish.

Last night Fearnley-Whittingstall told supporters: “I’m coming back on the Eurostar and it’s been a satisfying day. Discard disaster has been averted as the French, Spanish, Portguese and Belgian revolution just didn’t happen. Maria Damanaki led from the front and seems to be building consensus among the ministers. Everyone agreed that the amazing Twitter and Facebook activity over the weekend made a real difference.”

***

136,000 tweets were published between Saturday and when the EU Fisheries Ministers gathered in Brussels on Monday morning, addressed directly to each Minister in his/her own language.

To top off a moment of victory, this evening Hugh’s Fish Fight won the RTS Award for Best Popular Factual Programme, the citation [below] highlighting the importance of the multiplatform element. Hugh was delighted and is raring to move on with the follow-up series this year which will cover events like yesterday in Brussels.

“An interesting, watchable and accessible series of clever and effortless campaigning. The presenter is an amazing advocate, demonstrates admirable tenacity and gains unbelievable access. The series is also distinctive in terms of online innovation and activity.”

This is the second time this year a resolutely TV-centric awards has picked up on the multiplatform dimension of Fishfight, indicating the increasingly mainstream character of Multiplatform. Last month Fishfight won the Best Popular Factual Programme category of the Broadcast Awards, run by the industry’s tradepaper. The citation included:

“A passionate, uncompromising programme that made a potentially dull subject fascinating – and with superb use of multiplatform.”

Tipping the hat to Hugh’s previous campaign, Chicken Out, I conclude with a traditional little joke: Why did the Belgian chicken cross the road?

(Because there’s fuck all else to do in Brussels.) Not like the London chicken then.

{Article reproduced courtesy of The Independent.}

Multiplatform metrics

Here’s a recent article from Broadcast summarising the emerging approach at Channel 4 to measuring the impact of TV-centric multiplatform projects for planning, monitoring and evaluation.

 

C4 spells out aims for multiplatform orders

By Balihar Khalsa

Channel 4 is implementing a new framework for measuring the success of multiplatform commissions.

The framework is made up of a handful of commissioning criteria and seven factors for multiplatform commissioners to consider when ordering a project. Work on the framework began after Richard Davidson-Houston was promoted to head of online in July.

Multiplatform commissions will be expected to increase TV viewing of the project they are related to, whether linear or on-demand. They will also be expected to have either public service or commercial value, or both, and generate rich data from consumers, as well as pushing convergence.

Alongside the criteria, multiplatform content will be expected to achieve one of seven aims. These are: Audience, Attention, Access, Action, Appreciation, Additions and Advocacy.

Commissioners must identify which of these aims they are primarily attempting to meet at the outset of each project.

Examples of what the seven A’s translate to:

1. Audience – number of visits to a page, how many visitors from the UK, how many times people come back.

2. Attention – how many pageviews they look at during the visit or the duration of the visit.

3. Access – looking at how much people register to gain access to content.

4. Action – something like the number of tests taken or games played or completed.

5. Appreciation- a satisfaction score or awards wins.

6. Additions – contributions, number of comments, number of comments each visitor leaves.

7. Advocacy – Twitter re-tweets, Facebook likes, number of Facebook likes per user.

Features and Factual Entertainment Multiplatform Commissioning Editor Adam Gee said the framework “reflects the changes at C4 in recent months. There is an emphasis on data and this framework for metrics is part of that”.

Gill Pritchard’s appointment as director of audience technologies and insight in January marked a first for the broadcaster. Pritchard, who reports directly to C4 chief executive David Abraham, is responsible for maximising audience interaction to create commercial opportunities.

Gee said: “We are conscious that we are working in a medium that can be measured in a much more defined way. When you can measure things better, it is a lot easier to express what their value is.”

Multiplatform commissioners now sit alongside genre commissioners, a change implemented by Abraham in a move to push the “multiplatform approach into the centre of the organisation, rather than leaving ‘new’ media in its own isolated silo”.

A bumper week of sales in alternative fish

Fish sales soar as celebrity chef campaign hits home

 

Supermarkets and fishmongers report a bumper week of sales in alternative fish like coley, pollack and mackerel after celebrity chefs team up to champion them

 

 

Celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is leading a campaign to change Britain’s fish eating habits

By Richard Tyler 18 Jan 2011 Daily Telegraph 

Billingsgate Market in London has said its 42 traders had seen a surge in demand following the launch of Channel 4’s Fish season last week, which saw chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay extolling the virtues of alternatives to cod, salmon and tuna like coley, Cornish pollack and mackerel.

Tesco, the country’s largest supermarket, said it had sold between 25pc and 45pc more “fresh sardines, coley, brown crab, whiting and sprats” compared to the previous week.

Marks & Spencer said it had its biggest ever week of fish sales, up 25pc on the same week last year, while Sainsbury’s said it had seen 12pc increase in pre-packed fish and a 7pc rise at its fish counters and in frozen fish. Pollock, an alternative to cod, was up 167pc, it said.

“We have managed to get our hands on more Dab than normal. It will influence what our buyer orders,” said a Sainsbury’s spokesman.

Independent fishmongers have also seen a spike in consumer demand and interest in the fish they are buying.

Steve Herbert, who with his brother Graham and their father William, runs W.J. Herbert & Sons on the Wood Green high street, north London, said: “It’s been a good week. Lots of people have been coming up asking about the TV show. There’s been a hell of a lot more coley sold. That had been dropping off.”

However, Mr Herbert said some alternatives like Monkfish and Turbot were too expensive for most customers and even mackerel had risen in price recently. “If the fish is too dear people will just not pay it,” he said.

Mr Herbert said they had seen one-off surges in demand, most notably during the BSE disease crisis that peaked in 1992, and he remained a realist. “We have seen a rise in sales after TV shows before and then it drops away,” he said.

Don Tyler, chairman of the London Fish Merchants Association and a big fan of sprats, said: “Retailers I have spoken to have had a very, very good week. There’s no doubt that the publicity has led the public to be more adventurous.”

He added: “We were very concerned about the publicity over fish getting thrown over board but the campaign has attracted favourable attention to the trade.”

Article reproduced courtesy of Daily Telegraph

Embarrassing Bodies: Kids

Here’s an article from this week’s Broadcast. Embarrassing Bodies: Kids starts tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.

Embarrassing Bodies extends site to tackle children’s health

29 April, 2010 | By Robin Parker

Live & kicking

Channel 4 has unveiled yet another brand extension for the Embarrassing Bodies franchise: a website devoted to children’s health.

The site, to be hosted at channel4.com/kids, will feature exclusive videos and applications featuring the doctors from the main show and the four-part Embarrassing Bodies: Kids, which begins this week.

Producer Maverick has worked with Dr Dawn Harper to create the Development Milestones application, which enables parents to plot their child’s development and receive detailed advice on what to do if this process shows up
any abnormalities.

Parents will receive reminders as children hit further milestones and when they require immunisations and health checks.

A Kids Lifestyle Checker application analyses a child’s lifestyle and calculates risk levels for 13 key conditions, and offers personalised advice on making positive changes.

Dr Christian Jessen is fronting a series of videos billed as Should We Be Worried?, in which he explains the symptoms and remedies for more than 80 of the most common childhood illnesses.

The site will span health issues affecting children of all ages – from babies and toddlers to older kids – and will be integrated with government-funded health advice site NHS Choices.

C4 cross-platform commissioner Adam Gee said the site was launched to address the lack of high-quality video on the web tackling children’s health issues, with older kids particularly under-served.

Embarrassing Bodies’ established website, at channel4.com/ bodies, has been used by 6 million people to date and has attracted more than 6.5 million video views.

It is now in the running for a Bafta TV Craft award, opposite The Apprentice’s Predictor game, which was developed by Monterosa with Talkack Thames and the BBC; Objective Productions’ and Illumina Digital’s C4 education
project Science of Scams; and Who Killed Summer?, a web teen drama produced by Bigballs Films, MWorks and Hideous Productions.

The children’s website will go live next week, and on 14 May the established live web show Embarrassing Bodies Live will focus on children’s health.

Last month, Maverick unveiled a 4 x 60-minute extension to the brand, Embarrassing Fat Bodies, and won an 18-part recommission of the main show. Last year, it produced a special edition centred on old people.

[This article is reproduced courtesy of Broadcast.]

EBK in NMA

An article from New Media Age on Embarrassing Bodies: Kids which launches today at www.channel4.com/kids

Embarrassing Bodies: Kids

Channel 4 and Maverick build site to help parents keep kids healthy

Jessica Davies

Channel 4 has launched a site Embarrassing Bodies: Kids to boost engagement with parents concerned about their children’s health.

The site at channel4.com/kids goes live today to coincide with the show’s broadcast. It features exclusive video and social applications providing more space for parents to share advice and experiences.

The broadcaster and production company Maverick TV hope to build up a community around the site, in turn boosting audience dwell time.

The first Embarrassing Bodies site, which won a BAFTA for interactivity, attracted 6m users and 6.5m video views, plus a further 9m via Channel 4’s official YouTube channels.

Adam Gee, cross-platform commissioner at Channel 4, said, “The original site was never really intended to build up a community per se, as people generally used it to follow up a specific issue and would then be directed to the best online or offline support group.

“The Kids site aims to increase engagement and time spent on it, as parents will be able to discuss a common interest: their children.”

The site has a Development Milestones application so parents can plot their child’s development over time and receive reminders when immunisations and check-ups are due.

The broadcaster has also opened up a range of advertising opportunities for the site, including creative sponsorships.

Channel 4 will host a special episode of Embarrassing Bodies Live on 14 May focusing on kids’ health, airing exclusively online at channel4.com/bodieslive.

[This article is reproduced courtesy of New Media Age.]

Sparking the imagination

Here are some extracts from an article on Creation Interactive which illustrates how Embarrassing Bodies is getting the healthcare industry to rethink how it communicates with patients and the public…

TV & Online: What can TV’s Embarrassing Bodies teach the healthcare industry?

With an outstanding level of online engagement during and after each programme, Embarrassing Bodies shows a strong correlation between relevant and challenging content and behaviour change.

A serious medical condition can make for uncomfortable discussions between friends and family.  But what if you suffer from an embarrassing illness, one you can’t share with your aunt, your workmates or you may even be too ashamed to speak to a medical professional about it?

In the UK, a television show has sparked the imagination of TV and internet viewers by getting people to talk about, share and understand medical and body conditions that some people might think are obscure, freakish or disgusting.

With over 4 million TV viewers and an outstanding level of online engagement during and after each programme, Embarrassing Bodies illustrates that:

• Consumers are interested in everyday health, sickness and wellbeing
• Engaging content can make difficult health subjects accessible through everyday language
• People are willing to talk about personal and embarrasing health issues online
• Access to senior physicians provides a platform for stimulating response
• There is a strong correlation between relevant and challenging content and behaviour change

Embarrassing bodies TV series

Embarrassing Bodies was commissioned by Channel 4 as part of their public service remit to explore difficult personal medical issues. Since 2007 the factual entertainment series and website, produced by Maverick Television, has delivered on-screen diagnosis by the team’s professional medical presenters who explain complex medical conditions in an engaging way. They follow patients through their decisions and operations, showing life-changing stories as sufferers are relieved of burdens from illness they have lived with sometimes for many years.  Participants trust the show’s talented experts, who include Doctors Christian Jessen, Pixie McKenna and Dawn Harper who have become role models for General Practitioners.

The heart-rendering Charlotte’s Story told the journey of a child who’s ugly verrucas were diagnosed as a symptom of a life-threatening bone marrow condition. The broadcast had an incredible response: The Antony Nolan Trust saw a 5,000% rise in requests for information on Bone Marrow Transplant the day after transmission.

TV content from Charlotte’s Story includes close-up detail of surgery

The power of the web experience

The secret to the show’s success is its engaging web and interactive experience.  The website generated the highest ever web and mobile viewing figures for a Channel 4 show, garnering 1.2 million page views within 24 hours of a May 2008 broadcast. The show regularly attracts 150,000 viewers who engage during or after each episode.

Viewers respond to a powerful call-to-action from the TV broadcast to visit the website where they can explore the issues raised.  An Autism-Spectrum Test was accessed 38,000 times in less than a minute.

The show encourages viewers to take further action to safeguard their health by performing checks on their skin, breast and testicles, providing web resources for self-diagnosis.  The website regularly receives comments from those who have been motivated to act, like a woman who discovered a lump in her breast:

“Because I found it in very early stages, it hadn’t spread and my outlook is fabulous. Thank you for your clear way of showing people like me how to potentially save our own lives!”

The show has a presence in selected networks: through the TV broadcast, the website, and a Facebook group (which has 147,000 fans) which feeds key stories and links from the show’s main website.  The #embarrasingbodies hashtag is used by thousands of Twitter viewers during the show, although the show has no official Twitter presence.

…

Channel 4’s Cross Platform Commissioner Adam Gee believes the key to the series’ success is in combining talent and honesty in an entertaining and engaging form.

“If you want to talk about lactose intolerance, get their attention by talking about farting as a way into it.  Health information doesn’t need to be po-faced. It’s a good engaging route into ‘meat and two veg’ healthcare issues. The show’s very open, non-judgemental tone and human language creates a huge sense of reassurance that people aren’t alone, and also a sense of hope.”

Embarrassing Bodies uses straight-talking everyday language to engage people about their health

Embarrassing Teenage Bodies targeting difficult-to-reach teenagers, generated a flood of 11,000 website comments showing confidence and changed attitudes. During the evening of the broadcast, 99,000 people took an online STI risk checker – engagement you would be unlikely to ever find in a sex education lesson at school.  This show generated many mobile downloads, suggesting that teenagers are more likely to access this type of content in private on mobile devices than on computers.

The website allows for anonymous interactions: users do not have to pre-register to submit their photos or questions or to comment, however, the team have launched a new strand with real identities, Embarrassing Bodies: Kids for worried parents that have a common interest in the welfare of the children.  Channel 4 have used the programme as a model for supporting the preventative public health agenda and experimenting with online interactivity.  They are currently developing a buddying system for people who suffer from the same chronic illness to support one another and share first hand experiences.

Embarrassing Bodies Live

This year the broadcaster took TV-to-web interactivity to the next level with Embarrassing Bodies Live – a web-only show directly after the TV broadcast. 42,000 viewers logged on to the site to pose questions to the team’s medical presenters. The live show aimed to do things that linear TV or a radio phone-in could not: responding directly to viewers questions and rewarding interaction through shaping the editorial.  Viewers submitted photos and questions anonymously then anyone could vote on those they wanted to be discussed, directly affecting the editorial in real time.  It took the conversations that were already happening on Twitter and spring-boarded them into a wider conversation.  #embarrassingbodies was the biggest trending topic on Twitter in the UK that night.

Developing Communities

Embarrassing Bodies has developed a sizeable community of interest, but it’s a transient rather than sticky community.  Adam Gee explains:

“You have to think carefully about what you’re doing with a community and not do the default thing to say let’s make a social network because they’re all the rage.  What kind of social network would be build around embarrassing illnesses except one of hypochondriacs? People don’t come with a common interest to a site like this: it’s a lot of small, temporary communities.  They arrive in a just-in-time, task-oriented way, looking for the condition they are worried about. They then hang out in the community just long enough to find which is the best support group or other help to plug into.

“The series has always connected to profession bodies, encouraging viewers to visit their General Practitioners and linking to the UK’s National Health Service Choices website. The destination sites are a stark contrast from the rich, engaging Embarrassing Bodies space. Suddenly, you’re in this white, stripped environment.  They are two poles of public service health – we need to recognise that it is one continuum: on one end are health professionals, on the other are communication professionals.  We spend all day finding ways to entertain and engage people, and they spend all day thinking about what is the correct medical procedure.”

Lessons for the healthcare industry

The website benefits exponentially from its springboard from a popular TV brand which regularly attracts up to four million television viewers. The challenge for the healthcare industry is to create its own springboards based on highly engaging content.

Embarrassing Bodies shows that rich media and interactivity can lead to deeper levels of engagement and changes in behaviour. Jonnie Turpie believes:

“Now that broadband accessibility and video steaming on the web is accessible to wider audiences there are increasing opportunities to make engaging interactive content and services. This enables digital media producers to deliver valuable health engagement, rather than simply health information, which may lead to greater prevention of illness.”

…

To make the most of digital engagement opportunities, television and online video should create a call-to-action to move audiences online and provide more in-depth information and medical solutions.  Embarrassing Bodies shows that promoting illness, no matter how difficult to discuss, in an approachable and human way and providing value for the user to progress their understanding, can capture attention and imagination, forming a first step in creating patient engagement.

[These extracts are reproduced courtesy of Creation Interactive. You can read the full article written by Susi O'Neill here.]

From 2-screen to 1-screen

Opening up possibilities...

Off shortly to a gathering at Maverick TV to prepare for our ground-breaking live switchover show on 10th Feb. The significance of this experiment is that it is taking pioneering 2-screen televisual experiences like Surgery Live and streamlining them to a single screen containing both the video and interactivity (see screenshot in my last post  Bodies Live).

Here’s how it was reported this week in New Media Age:

Channel 4 spins off live web show from Embarrassing Bodies series

21 January 2010 | By Charlotte McEleny

Channel 4 is broadcasting an interactive live web show as part of the
Embarrassing Bodies series.

The broadcaster and production company Maverick TV will stream a live
programme directly after the TV show allowing viewers to influence the
content. Channel 4 said 150,000 people already engage online during or after
the episodes.

The content of Embarrassing Bodies: Live will come from the viewers, who can
comment, vote, submit content and have their health problems diagnosed live.

Each show will also feature a live health check to follow at home, such as a
breast or testicle examination.

Adam Gee, cross-platform commissioner at Channel 4, said, “We wanted to do
something that took complete advantage of being on the web, so anything that
has gone into the show shouldn’t be possible to do on linear digital TV.”

Users can interact in real time via the channel4.co.uk/bodies site but also through
social networks including Twitter and Facebook.

The web show will start after the second episode of the current series, which
airs on 10 February.