Broadcasters seek show properties with online component conceived from start

Independent producers will have to bring fully conceived ideas for converged TV shows/web properties to broadcasters if they want to sell their products, an industry group recently heard at a workshop on marketing web sites. Several broadcasters from around the world made the pitch for more integrated show ideas at the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund’s Driving Traffic, Website Marketing: Online and Offline Strategies workshop November 20 in Toronto. During the day, several broadcast representatives including CHUM Television Interactive’s Maria Hale; William Corbin, VP, interactive at A&E Television; Domenic Friguglietti, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) New Media’s manager of commissioning and co-productions; and Claude Galipeau, managing director of CBC.ca, urged new media and television producers in the audience to bring them show ideas in which the online portion has already been conceived as an integral part of the overall property. Hale, for instance, told moderator Stephen Comeau of Collideascope Entertainment that, "You need to be thinking of new media as part of the program," including from the conceptual stage. Further, she said, an integrated production needs to have export potential – just as a TV producer would have to consider in a traditional pitch. But Hale drew some quiet criticism when she told the audience that her company wouldn’t likely listen to pitches from producers on how to promote converged programming. Asked what kind of promotional leverage an independent producer could bring to the table – pre-arranged sponsorships, for example – Hale said CHUM would prefer to handle promotion in-house, saying that was the broadcaster’s expertise. Hale pointed to the Ed the Sock franchise as an example of a successfully sold convergence product – with ownership resting with the producer, a key concern for the independents. She says the show is an example of how CHUM will purchase shows without taking full ownership over the Internet component. "I’m very open minded about this." She conceded, though, that CHUM has traditionally taken full ownership of the various web sites associated with its shows. For his part, Friguglietti repeated the assertion that integration between a web site and related television program must be conceived of from the start. He told the audience that ABC looks to web sites to build audiences for the TV component as well as helping producers solicit feedback and follow trends. He stressed that a successful relationship between the broadcaster and producer relies on a certain give-and-take from both parties, pointing to the work done by both ABC and Toronto’s Snap Media to launch the Degrassi series in Australia (CNM, Sept. 6/02). The broadcaster, he said, has spent about $30,000 to maintain the site, which reached 29,000 users within its first five months. Claude Galipeau of CBC.ca also stressed the importance of integrating web site content with its related television program right from the conceptual stage. He said the CBC has actually seen examples of web content driving new television shows, including the Chilly Beach property (CNM, May 18/00) and the recently launched Zed series. He noted that the CBC, as a taxpayer-funded broadcaster, is at greater liberty to try cutting-edge concepts. "There is an appetite for risky projects at the CBC," he said. He also noted that producers may have the best luck by pitching youth and children’s programming to the network. Finally, A&E’s Corbin also emphasized the importance of new media content in driving traffic to TV shows, as well as to web sites where users can add revenue through avenues such as ecommerce. "If you’re not delivering your message on cell phones by now, you’re already out of the game," he said. Unlike the other broadcasters, however, Corbin poured cold water on the notion of rich sites replete with content such as games or multimedia. He noted, for example, that A&E has spent as much as US$15 per user to incorporate games into its sites in the past – something the network no longer does. He said A&E’s cost per user is now in the pennies as it offers stripped down content about the personalities it features on shows such as Biography and program listings. "At A&E, all the content is there to get people to watch the program," he noted, adding that 21 per cent of people who watch the History Channel do so since they visited the web site and that 14 per cent of A&E viewers were driven to the tube by online content. Corbin also predicted that within five years, "virtual networks" would exist delivering content to users via the web and that new media departments within broadcasters would control the agendas. The workshop, which also featured presentations on properly using HTML and search engines to drive web traffic, was co-sponsored by the Ontario Media Development Corporation. Bell Fund executive director Andra Sheffer tells Canadian NEW MEDIA that the need for a marketing workshop was clear in the wake of numbers showing many fund recipients were doing a poor job at ensuring their sites were well-visited. "We did some research and found out that many of them hadn’t even been registered with search engines…very basic things. It’s heartbreaking." She notes that, "everyone is aware that they’re weak in marketing. It’s just a Canadian thing." She doesn’t rule out the possibility of future workshops on the same subject.

Broadcasters seek show properties with online component conceived from start

News | 11/28/2002 5:00 am EST

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