Keynote speech given at MIPTV featuring MILIA in Cannes
(Joint keynote with Ashley Highfield)
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Wednesday 18 April 2007
Printable version
On a wet afternoon in January 1980 I closed the door of the edit suite behind me and set off clutching a circular tin containing my first ever piece for television. At 37 minutes past 7 in the evening I sat nervously in front of a TV monitor in the transmission suite and watched for 12 minutes as my moment of television magic transmitted to the nation. So nervous, I burst into tears of relief afterwards, embarrassing myself in front of the rather more experienced current affairs team. It was a very fine feeling but – and this is a big but – all too fleeting.
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Making great TV is intensely challenging – even my first 12 minutes was hard work – though I can't claim it was great TV! It is emotionally draining and endlessly fascinating. For many years in television production and commissioning, I've watched all that creative energy – blood sweat and tears – result in a momentary burst of transmission on a linear TV channel to the audience available then and there.
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So, who wouldn't love today better – programme makers being offered many new spaces and places for their programmes to be seen in this world of multiplatform? It means programmes can be available wherever you are – and available on demand.
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And if broadcasters don't seize the day, audiences will anyway...
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I have been interested in looking at the theory of the so-called "long tail" – because ensuring the public gets more out of programmes matters crucially to producers and public service broadcasters today, even in the case of the smaller gems in the inventory. So I looked at the case of Tetris: from Russia with Love, a documentary telling the story of the Russian scientist who invented Tetris inside a soviet research institute, only to have Western games giants like Nintendo fight to get the commercial rights to licence what became one of the first big video games in the West. It was a somewhat specialist documentary for our digital channel, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Four, Tetris was transmitted in the normal way initially on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Four where it gained an audience of 22,000.
Then it was repeated on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two where it gained 430,000 viewers.
That was it from us but then viewers took over. It was uploaded, unofficially, to Google Video in October 2006. Between then and March it generated 331,000 views.
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But what's interesting is not just how it was distributed but how the programme became part of the wider web world.
Google lists some 70 websites linking direct to the programme on Google Video compared with just 7 websites linking to the official ´óÏó´«Ã½ Four programme page – while the Viral Video Chart lists 90 blogs linking direct to the video. In fact, discussion of the documentary is all over the web. A Google search for "Tetris: From Russia with Love" returns 48,100 matches and includes a Wikipedia article, an IMDb entry, a Slashdot discussion, a page on AOL's TV Guide, a Digg entry and an article on Answers.com.
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As you probably guessed, the arrival on the web was not exactly rights cleared. Arguably, in fact the most radical and difficult, element in all this is rights position.
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As a means of distribution, multiplatform is, in many ways, the answer to programme makers' prayers. The long tail will work for lots of output. I believe there is not a programme-maker nor a commissioner in the world who wouldn't always prefer their creative effort to be accessible in more places, by more people, for longer.
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But while Tetris is a great example of creating audiences' comment and community, the Power Of Nightmares shows what happens when audiences are inspired to create new content.
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When this authored documentary series by Adam Curtis joined the multiplatform world audiences actually began to create their own versions.
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This is where things get really exciting – when our content is a catalyst for the creativity of our audiences. Again, hugely problematic in rights terms but an area we must, as an industry, respond to appropriately.
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In ´óÏó´«Ã½ Vision we have brought together commissioning and production for all multiplatform content – because what multiplatform offers producers goes beyond multiplying the ways to deliver the content we already have – it gives ´óÏó´«Ã½ Vision and others the opportunity to commission and create entirely new forms of output and to forge entirely new relationships with our audiences.
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To illustrate, I'd like to begin with some stories showing the rapid evolution of ´óÏó´«Ã½ channels, starting with some of our youngest.
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When we launched the children's channels Cbeebies and C´óÏó´«Ã½ in 2001, it was clear from the outset that these were more than linear TV channels : they were designed as multimedia brands with powerful websites and interactive TV services and we commissioned their sub-brands, the programmes, to form part of that multiplatform experience.
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But we also knew we had to continually push to engage the most technologically sophisticated audience there is.
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Adventure Rock is a completely new departure for us into the world of 3D environments which we have developed with Larian Studios, an independent game development company based in Belgium, who have also developed with VRT.
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Accessible from the C´óÏó´«Ã½ website, children can wander around an island discovering C´óÏó´«Ã½ content. Each element of the application will promote creatvitiy, ICT skills, positive contribution and collaboration.
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So we have the channel expressed as a virtual world actually peopled by its audience – a new type of relationship indeed.
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At the other end of the spectrum, the channels ´óÏó´«Ã½ One and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two have got a longer pedigree but were never designed to be anything other than linear TV scheduled brands. So, at first glance, it's less obvious what their role should be in the multiplatform environment. Perhaps they are simply navigational tools?
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We know they can also be successful websites reflecting the channel's marketing priorities and allowing viewers to watch programmes and clips and rate them – and we know there is an appetite for all that from our experiments with ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two on broadband.
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So why not really open out our websites to viewers' views of our programmes: to engage beyond green ink letters, complaints and calls to the log? Why not put all our marketing efforts onto the web, to truly enjoy trails and promotions: some of the most creative are global award winning pieces of content, too!, and let audiences play rather than just see. Again, it feels obvious. Why not go further and find adventurous producers who want their pilots to be seen and judged on the web first?
Or to make the show with the audience?
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But how much of a relationship can multiplatform audiences really have with brands like ´óÏó´«Ã½ One and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two and how much do they really care? And what have they to do with new forms of content?
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Well, think about this: earlier this year ´óÏó´«Ã½ ONE launched a new series of on-air idents. Within hours of the launch, the real idents were posted unofficially on YouTube by the audience.
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But then a brilliant homage to ´óÏó´«Ã½ One's ident came next... anyone remember a famous scene in a shower?
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How should we respond when our audiences take what we've made and mash it up into something different? Do we send a cease and desist order or do we celebrate this creativity? In fact, when ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two launched its new idents this winter, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two website made a logo ki' available and the users began generating their own 'citizen ident’, typically posted on YouTube – and linked to and from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two website.
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The ident story captures, I think, the spirit of the world we are operating in: raindrops and ripples. We in the media have always been only one part of a larger conversation, one of the many intersecting ripples in a pond, but we have tended to see ourselves as the raindrops: the things that generate the ripples, that start the conversation. But we also risk underestimating the audiences' speed. In March, our big comedy and charity night with Comic Relief had hours of great sketches and comedy as well as incredibly emotional short documentaries about Africa, about poverty in Britain. By the time I got home that night, all of the sketches had been uploaded onto You Tube, but not by the ´óÏó´«Ã½!
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We quickly did it officially and added donation buttons for Comic Relief on both official and unofficial videos, and will need to be ahead of the audience next time.
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Now that it's clear the conversation genuinely can be a creative two-way process, and in many cases multi-way, we are witnessing the possibilities opened up when many ripples bump against one another and the patterns of interference, the 'mash-ups', they create. We have the opportunity more than ever before to willingly seed the clouds of creativity and see a creative rainfall.
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An understanding of what makes a perfect gem of video is one of the things we are working towards in our own YouTube channel. We are exploring a range of options all in the promotional vein: extracts from current programmes, some outtakes and some specially made content in the form of 'video diaries' from the frontline of production. What's doing well? Well, our current top ten looks like this:
| 1 |
´óÏó´«Ã½ One - David Tennant's Doctor Who Video Diary |
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´óÏó´«Ã½ One Dr Who - Exclusive Clip of Episode 1Ìý |
| 3Ìý |
´óÏó´«Ã½ One - Harry Enfield's Sketch ShowÌý |
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´óÏó´«Ã½ Three - Richard Massey's Last Man Standing Video DiaryÌý |
| 5Ìý |
´óÏó´«Ã½ One – Comic ReliefÌý |
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´óÏó´«Ã½ One – Comic ReliefÌý |
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´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 2 - Russell Brand Video Diary 2Ìý |
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´óÏó´«Ã½ One – Comic ReliefÌý |
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´óÏó´«Ã½ Three - Outtake from IdealÌý |
| 10Ìý |
´óÏó´«Ã½ - Danny Wallace's Castaway Video Diary Part 1Ìý |
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Dr Who – as ever – doing well and lots of comedy – but also factual programming from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Three in Last Man Standing – where western athletes are pitted against tribal champions in a series of extraordinary sporting challenges. And also in that top 10 a mixture of programme extracts and specially made video diaries.
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All the ´óÏó´«Ã½ content we are offering is under 3 minutes long and sometimes very much shorter.
The most 'boutique' offering so far has been 'The Kiss' from Doctor Who series 3. This 'meeting of mouths' between the 10th doctor David Tennant and his new assistant Martha Jones lasts just 8 seconds, and has been viewed 97,800 times; although it's technically possible, I suppose, that that's the work of one extremely ardent fan, I think not. A mere 8 seconds of Doctor Who does it for some people, if it's done just right. Quite long for a kiss?
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We need to understand the creative opportunities and the value of short form content: and not only on video hosting services like YouTube.
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And we also need to make sure we are effectively using the power of the web to enable audiences to discover new content they didn't even know we make.
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We no longer need to present the audience simply with a small portfolio of linear channels, but we can disaggregate all of our content and repackage it into genre, demographic or passion related areas, and zones.
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So, for example, we can pull together all of the arts content we offer across ´óÏó´«Ã½ One, Two, Three and Four into a hugely rich and exciting ´óÏó´«Ã½ artszone. We can package together all of our content targeted at teenagers or food lovers. And of course we can enable audiences to create their own packages and their own schedules.
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We know that audiences can now search for any individual programme they want and many will do so. But others will like guidance, either from the mass-market channel brands, or from these smaller content zones that repackage our content. This enables us to extend the editorial role we've always had.
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This opportunity is one that often leads to a debate about whether channels have any future. Often the debate is presented in terms of either/or questions: one route will win out over another. But we believe that we need to create multiple entry points to the same content, enabling audiences to navigate to it by channel, by genre, by recommendation, via the iPlayer, by search within or outside the ´óÏó´«Ã½ and from the blogs and personal websites of our audiences.
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This is a fantastic opportunity for an organisation that prides itself on creating some of the best content in the world and one that we, in ´óÏó´«Ã½ Vision, are eager to embrace.
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But the industry must look at its role in supporting other even more creative possibilities beyond access, distribution, search and viewer interaction offered by this multiplatform world.
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The ´óÏó´«Ã½ must seize this chance to be creative about programmes and content itself: not just what you do with it, or how you deliver it. And producers and programme makers need to ask themselves: what else could this creative space be for?
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Think back to the start of television. There were relatively few rules and the future was effectively defined by some clever imaginative people, and it didn't look like radio! What might evolve beyond distribution and access? What lies beyond infinite mash-ups and user generated content? Will the professional producer and broadcaster muscle in on garage and homebrewed content?
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One bet I'd be prepared to makeis that a) predictions will be fun because they will probably be wrong, and b) if we use comparisons to the TV of today to judge what form programming will take tomorrow, we will end up being like those crystal ball gazers who said television would be like radio with pictures.
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We would be wrong to assume that the non-linear web universe will just ape today's forms of television. But what is certain is that a huge creative space has suddenly opened up to creative programme makers, and there should be a creative explosion, especially supported by broadcasters who can fund original content, not just distribute it. And that creative opportunity should extend well beyond mash-ups, access and play it agains.
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So what is the ´óÏó´«Ã½ gong to do about this opportunity? It is why ´óÏó´«Ã½ Vision was formed this year as one of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s content groups: to harness audio-visual thinking right across the different programme making areas from drama to documentaries, right across TV channels and interactive TV, the web into mobiles and other screens. It is also why commissioners are building teams to commission all the different forms of content and programmes where we see great possibilities for the audience.
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A big question: will serious television of today migrate to pieces of short form, or wiki docs, and how much of it will carry public service values, or will we see more often the Jackass values of watching coke cans explode, slowly?
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I think the many different forms of future content will do all sorts of things – but Games are an interesting example of public service values being comfortably part of the content.
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CDX is one experiment that we have run into how gaming can interrelate with our programming.
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We found that this means of engaging brought an audience which was 64 per cent under 30, 84 per cent of whom said they had learned something about ancient Rome through playing the game and most of whom went on to further their learning as a result of playing the game.
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The world of gaming and social networks will join the broadcasters’ world, along with mash-ups, short form, and more game-like dramas and entertainment formats.
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In addition, deep, knowledge-based ideas will flourish along with the long tails of factual content – take the huge project we just announced this week with Bob Geldof and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide :the biggest anthropology project in the history of broadcasting, coupling our landmark series The Human Planet and the A to Z of People. A deep reservoir of programmes, information, archive and people's testimonies and language will be created through this initiative, which will have lasting and growing value, much as our Planet Earth, natural history archive and our earth Portal project, which will be a huge environmental resource for years to come.
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So, I hope I have given you a flavour of what we are now embarking upon at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ as we move from television to audio visual on any screen near you; early days literally but now beginning these big new projects to build on the great creative work of the past few years.
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To go back to the start, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is inviting the best producers of programmes and multiplatform content to invent all sorts of new types of content and new stuff viewers can do with our stuff. It is a creative invitation that has few rules and scarily few limits, except money? Well, we’ve decided within ´óÏó´«Ã½ Vision that we’re going to at least double our investment in multiplatform activities over the next 3 years.
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And it will be these content producers and programmes makers who define quality content in this space if they have the appetite and the nerve. Of course, this would just be theory if no one could access the content and have the tools to play with it. For more on that, let me hand you over to Ashley Highfield, Director of Future Media and Technology at the ´óÏó´«Ã½.
