Odd Job Jack latest challenger in interactive business model race

Adding an interactive corollary to television shows doesn’t have to shrink the revenue pie for anyone concerned, says the producer of the new show Odd Job Jack. Broadcasters have been struggling for years to justify the investments they could make in interactive properties, but Smiley Guy Studios head Jonas Diamond tells Canadian NEW MEDIA that sponsorship from Molson, the behemoth brewer, has created two attractive advertising deals, providing plenty of incentive to run with both traditional broadcast and web components. Six episodes of Odd Job Jack will begin airing on Bell Globemedia’s The Comedy Network on March 5 and will feature Don McKellar, Dave Foley, Gary Farmer and Matthew Ferguson. Both the show and web site are produced by Smiley Guy and animated in Flash. More shows, according to Diamond, have already been given the go-ahead to round out the season at 13 episodes. The show, dubbed the world’s first "sit.com," follows lead character Jack Ryder through various temporary employments. Bolstering the TV content, the related web site will feature Flash games that can be played for Molson prizes, as well as additional show material such as the ability to get into the heads of the characters. With the support of both Telefilm Canada and the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, the show has evolved through several iterations. Odd Job Jack was originally a project by Diamond’s three partners while they were students at the Canadian Film Centre’s Bell Habit@t. Through the height of the dot com boom, the team developed it as a web animation series, pitching it to Z.com, MediaTrip.com and others in Silicon Valley. "We were going to be doing a deal with one or two of them, so there was some commercial viability there," Diamond says. While the web series might have become an Internet-only property at that point, unspecified hurdles stopped the deals, and the company was approached by The Comedy Network to develop the concept into a full-fledged television show. "We were kind of hesitant and saying, ‘well, we wanted this to be the first commercially successful interactive property.’ Then we came to our senses and said, ‘yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Sustainable revenue streams – we could try those on for size.’" The television broadcast will contain bumpers that invite viewers to visit the web site where further information on the program will be available. In fact, says Diamond, the endings of some shows will only become clear online, though with each visit, the conclusions will change. Molson’s participation is clearly a key ingredient in whatever success the show will find. "There are two agreements going on and, to be perfectly honest, it’s generating extra money for everyone involved – money that wasn’t there if this interactive component wasn’t there. It’s not incremental money. It’s not money that’s being split up. Everyone’s saying that there’s a pie and that basically interactivity has just brought another level to that pie – but it’s the same pie. But what we’re saying is that the pie is getting a bit bigger because we’ve got additional revenues for the network and for us because of this new media element." Comparisons will likely arise between the Odd Job Jack project and one of Canada’s few mainstream TV/web success stories, Degrassi, which airs on CTV, also a Bell Globemedia company. The CTV/SNAP Media project has been widely praised for its community-building activities, something SNAP officials say is proving that web components create audience loyalty and drive users to television broadcasts (CNM, Sept. 6/02). The Odd Job Jack project doesn’t yet have a community aspect, though. "For the next episodes, we’re going to build that out a lot more," Diamond says. "In this current run, what we’re doing is driven very much by emails and stuff like that." He adds that the company is already applying to the Bell fund for assistance to flesh out the web offering. "What I like to say and what I’ve told the Bell fund is we’ve laid the groundwork in terms of providing the content that we feel is appropriate to the show. Now the next stage is to create multi-player games where people can compete against one another and have buddy lists and have recommended competitor lists and to really build out the community experience for everyone. It’s our feeling that there’s no point in creating a community unless you have the registered user base. The intent over the next six months is to really build that out and to accumulate all these users. "We may also be hosted on a major Canadian web portal. Obviously, you may be able to guess who that would be," Diamond says, likely referring to Sympatico.ca, whose ownership recently transferred from Bell Globemedia to Bell Canada in a BCE Inc. restructuring. For its part, The Comedy Network is also looking forward to a richer user experience. Director of programming Brent Haynes tells CNM that he agrees sites can build audience loyalty. "There are other projects we are working on where it really is about creating a community as much as it is holding the viewers…Stuff like American Idol where everyone has something invested in the show just by watching it because you can vote or you can go online and talk about it afterwards. It’s very simple, but you’re a part of that experience rather than just sitting there watching it unfold before you. "I think this is our first big foray. There’s always directing people to a web site and having the web site drive back. But, as far as a true cross-platform experience, this is our first true foray, and I think animation’s an easy way to do it, because it fits both media so well." As for traditional broadcaster reticence at licensing third-party interactive content, Haynes says the decision wasn’t a difficult one. "This is a true three-way thing. You’ve got the producer, you’ve got the broadcaster and you’ve got the advertiser all working together to the same goal. Ultimately, that’s good for all of us because the producer gets to make his show and we get some advertising dollars and all that extra helps push the show to a larger viewing audience and ultimately that’s what Molson wants. It’s a nice way for three different entities to work together in an industry where it’s often push and pull and you’re trying to meet everyone’s needs."

Odd Job Jack latest challenger in interactive business model race

News | 02/20/2003 5:00 am EST

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