TV producers are no good at making YouTube videos

Picking up on the last post I’m glad to see my thoughts on YouTube-type video…

The new YouTube channels are an area where TV baggage is damaging. Some have squeezed out everything that’s really good about YouTube. You want that energy that comes from someone being able to record, edit and bang something out in three hours.

…broadly confirmed from the front line. Hank, one of the fellas behind Crash Course and SciShow, summarises the Lessons Learned from YouTube’s $300M Hole (its first tranche of  ‘Original Channel’ investment) thus:

1. Spending more money to produce the same number of minutes of content does not increase viewership. Online video isn’t about how good it looks, it’s about how good it is.
2. People who make online video are much better at making online video than people who make TV shows. This probably seems obvious to you (it certainly is to me) but it apparently was not obvious to the people originally distributing this money.
3. When advertising agencies tell you they want something (higher quality content, long-form content, specific demographics, lean-back content, stuff that looks like tv) it’s not our job to attempt to deliver those things. In a world where the user really does get to choose, the content created to satisfy the needs and wants of viewers (not advertisers) will always reign supreme (thankfully.)

He concludes “Of the 114 channels that YouTube funded as part of this initiative, my educated guess is that exactly one earned back its advance…”

No real surprise there gauging by the UK channels which are broadly made as cheap TV which looks …cheap – but not cheerful. Cheerful is the energy referred to above, in a world where there is no such thing as a jump cut and individual personality is what communicates the joie de vivre.

The New Rules of Engagement

This extract from Broadcast is based on a roundtable discussion about the state of play of multiplatform and interactivity around TV.

The new rules of engagement

14 March, 2013 | By Alex Farber

What are broadcasters and producers bringing to the table in multiplatform projects – and how can they make them pay? Broadcast brought together the key players at a roundtable sponsored by Xbox

ROUNDTABLE THE PANEL

Alex Farber (chair) Web editor, Broadcast
Adam Gee Multiplatform commissioner of factual, Channel 4
Harvey Eagle Marketing director, Xbox UK
Paul Bennun Chief creative officer, Somethin’ Else
Peter Cowley Managing director, Spirit Media
Victoria Jaye Head of IPTV and TV online content, BBC Vision
Anthony Rose Founder, Zeebox
Janine Smith Creative director, Zodiak Active

Why is innovation so important?

Paul Bennun All of us want to create wonderful services, products and content that is going to be enjoyed and used by as many people as possible. You can’t just think about programmes any more; you have to use design-thinking, and that means employing more than one platform.
…

Do viewers want innovation?

Anthony Rose When there was only black-and-white TV, it’s unlikely people were clamouring for colour; they didn’t know it was possible. As a developer, you take bigger bets on things that you think have a high chance of succeeding and smaller bets on things that are fun to try. That’s the joy of innovation.
…

How do they engage with content?

AR Once the BBC filmed beautiful things for TV, then it began producing programme pages online, then second- screen apps. Then Twitter arrived offering conversations around content. The nirvana is that some programmes could be completely interactive. Imagine The Voice where the audience is the fifth chair.

PB I disagree, I do not want to be calling the shots on a football match. I want a director to tell that story because they can do a better job than I can. Interactive dramas that try to work on a mass scale tend to be worse than a simple linear experience.

Adam Gee But Embarrassing Bodies: Live From The Clinic is exactly in that space. You can watch the show at 8pm and have been on it by 9pm. It throws the emphasis back on live TV, which is good for advertising. There is a sweet spot between TV and interactive where you can get mass participation and rewarding, new experiences.

Janine Smith We have reached a point where we can learn from things we have done, and develop new formats where the multiplatform element is integral and not just an extended add-on.

…

There is a sweet spot between TV and interactive where you can get mass participation and rewarding, new experiences.  Adam Gee, Channel 4

Has the role of the broadcaster changed?

AG It’s critical to ask what you can bring as a broadcaster that no one else can. Facebook, Twitter or Zeebox couldn’t make Live From The Clinic. You want to get to a position where if you extract the digital from the TV, it’s a lesser programme and vice-versa.

VJ Programming is still one of the key catalysts for social discussion. You’ve got to put something great out there for the audience to get excited about. Only we can bring Sir David Attenborough to Twitter for a chat about Africa.

AG I always ask if what is being proposed is better than a really good TV show and Twitter. Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is one of the biggest factual formats on Channel 4, but there’s nothing much that we can usefully bring to the party in that case – so we don’t…

Peter Cowley Editorially I agree, but if you were a purely commercial broadcaster you might have a different view.

…

PB When the BBC removed its multiplatform commissioning, it effectively started presenting itself to the world as a TV commissioner. Because the BBC measures itself on its performance with TV programmes, it isn’t measuring the success of its digital formats.

AG We’re in a different place at C4. The past 18 months has been about trying to find the passage from digital to television. I’m working on a panel show that started life as an online arts commission; it’s a sign of maturity that this direction of travel is now possible.

How mainstream are multiplatform projects becoming?

VJ Media literacy is a big job for the BBC. The challenge is: how do you invite and choreograph 6 million people to download an app and play along with a 35-year-old programme such as Antiques Roadshow?

HE We are now trying to expand our audience beyond core gamers by creating content and entertainment experiences with broader appeal.

…

Who are the emerging players?

VJ Felix Baumgartner’s space dive really showcased the mixed economy: a 10-minute live event, funded by Red Bull, with 8 million YouTube viewers, followed by a BBC documentary funded via a completely different model with National Geographic. It shows the new players that are bringing audiences content.

PB Red Bull has no broadcast infrastructure overheads. It will ask how something executes across the different platforms and won’t draw any distinctions. We made Red Bull’s Bedroom Jam, which included an online music competition and a live broadcast. A programme doesn’t sum up what we’re trying to achieve any more.

HE We’re trying to go beyond the console model and become a service that exists across multiple devices.

AG The new YouTube channels are an area where TV baggage is damaging. Some have squeezed out everything that’s really good about YouTube. You want that energy that comes from someone being able to record, edit and bang something out in three hours.

Extract published courtesy of Broadcast

 

 

AspirationNation: Work Hard and Die

One of these is from a real Conservatives leaflet published in the wake of yesterday’s budget, I kid you not (guess which one)

36DD-Day

2nd edition of today’s historic currant bun

Twitter storm at sea

This was an interesting experiment we tried recently on enlivening pre-recorded shows – in this case by calling out for a mass action over an ad break focused on three UK supermarkets which are unclear about the sourcing of some of their seafood (though no horse flesh involved …I think) and then presenting back the results straight after the break including an on-screen graphic featuring the number of tweets sent. In the words of the Twitter folk: “A great result around the show last night. We count circa 42K+ in the last 24 hours and a peak of 22K+ at the call to action – which is an equivalent hashtag spike to those Xfactor enjoys around its biggest moments! This kind of audience activation and live polling with Twitter is brilliant.”
The following extract is courtesy of Broadcast…

Big Fish Fight hooks 20,000 tweets

5 March, 2013 | By Alex Farber

Hugh’s Fish Fight saw a massive surge in Twitter activity – to over 2,200 messages per minute – after presenter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall urged viewers to message the UK’s biggest supermarkets.

Hugh’s Big Fish Fight (C4) 9pm-10pm
Total tweets: 22,151
Peak tweets per minute: 2,289

Fearnley-Whittingstall’s call to action over sustainable fishing saw over 10,000 viewers flock to Twitter over the course of the 60-minute show, according to data from SecondSync.

The show was watched by an audience of 1.1m (5.3%) according to overnight data supplied by Attentional – a conversion rate of around 1%.

The viewer engagement spiked at just after 9.30pm ahead of an ad break as Fearnley-Whittingstall encouraged viewers to tweet the supermarkets’ official accounts after they refused to be interviewed on the show.

The figures represented a massive uplift on the 312 tweets per minute the show averaged across the 60 minutes.

It also dwarfed the total tweet volume of 3,300 and 1,500 generated by the first two episodes in the series – when no call-to-action occurred.

C4’s multiplatform commissioning editor of factual Adam Gee said: “Fish Fight represents the sweet spot of multiplatform – the TV prompts understandable anger and the digital means now you can do something about it.”

The social media campaign was managed by digital agency Keo Digital and audience participation experts Telescope Inc.