Multitasking, once predicted as the last nail in the coffin of the TV industry, could now be the thing that reconnects TV with its most important asset: the audience.
- This article has been published in Blink Magazine by Mediacom
. The whole edition of the publication is concerned with the future of TV and is a recommended read
. Find it here...
Some highlights from the article:
- …Brian Sullivan, CEO of SKY Deutschland, suggested on his panel Future TV at the DLD Conference in January this year that social media is reconnecting us to the original TV experience…
…As our hectic lifestyles have fragmented the experience of watching television from what was once a social and societal event in to an individual and contained occurrence. TV became something that happened between eight and eleven in the evening, not the social glue that sparked conversations and enthusiasm far outside the TV channels peak hours. In Sullivan’s own words: The Internet is bringing TV back to the water cooler..
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…Where most discussion in regards to this topic often fall on its face as it stops with top of the mind thinking like getting people to chat and share. Kevin Slavin of Starling comments that the issue is not to get people to meet and talk, they are already doing that
. The challenge is how to make this activity kinetic…
Peter Hirshberg, a colleague of Slavin and CEO of RE:imagine Group argues on the same panel as Sullivan that a Twitter stream doesn’t really feel like media. It needs to be connected and weaved in with the content in order to become a part of the shows storyline and offering…
…But this is not just an area for explorative small start-ups. Ynon Kreiz, Chairman and CEO at the Endemol Group, the worlds largest independent TV production company is challenging all his creatives to think outside the TV screen, to view TV as just a center of gravity, not only bringing people to the screen, but offering them a much broader experience…
…just free riding on the wave of engagement that is happening on Facebook and Twitter does not create a larger experience, it creates an additional one. The challenge is to figure out how to tap into it…
…Whoever figures out how people can be connected to their friends and family, and interact with them through the content on the TV – without having a four to five meter long arm stretching across the living room will be the next Steve Jobs…
..Where it seemed that storytellers and producers steered clear of audience involvement early on as it was thought that involving them would mean an abandonment of the professional and razor sharp set up of the TV content – giving masses of lay people the same power over the story and production as the seasoned experts. It now seems that the interaction does not affect the storyline directly, but plays of it, in parallel…
..It all comes down to the wonders of multitasking. The solution is making laptop and mobile augmentations to the big screen. We see stories merge across platforms and activities, which can take many forms – at the same time…
…Online is not a storage facility for additional surplus content, it is an activity
– Myocardial Infarction, MI sildenafil citrate being asked by their doctors about sexual functioning..
. And what we need to do is embrace multitasking and design stories that activate people, not just entertain them…
…People multitasking is an opportunity, not a problem. The laptop is a multiplier, not a distraction and TV as a tightly directed and broadcasted event is just the center of gravity for all the stuff that is gaining centrifugal momentum around it.
Please read the whole article and the entire Blink 2 magazine here.
