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Multiplatform commissioning

Multiplatform commissioning

Britannia High

Inertia has hindered the development of innovative cross-platform projects from UK broadcasters - but the commissioning culture is changing.

The online strategy of UK broadcasters continues to attract criticism from producers frustrated at commissions that fail to capitalise on the internet's properties. In response, broadcasters are restructuring the commissioning process to make sure the web is not confined to supporting TV shows - something that has already begun to deliver more innovative interactive activity, with plenty to follow over the next year.

"Many broadcasters and indies don't understand the truly transformative nature of the internet," says Graham Stuart, co-founder of So TV, producer of C4's multiplatform project Year Dot. "The principal mistake is to approach cross-platform with a television mindset. The term '360' has clouded the issue. Online should not be grafted onto TV."

Somethin Else director of strategy Paul Bennum is equally blunt. "There's resistance from many TV commissioning editors to greenlight anything not primarily TV connected. The major interactive projects they do commission tend to be unadventurous partly because the broadcasters are not set up to edit, execute or market it, but also because they commission from the larger TV indies which suffer from the same problem. There's a creative, production and management inertia."

Head of RDF Digital Zad Rogers is also uncomfortable with 360-degree commissioning as it now is. "There's no real evidence that people want to continue to interact with TV content online," he says. "The internet is a different beast requiring a different approach based around the lifecycle of a project and how people interact with it." Rogers cites A Message From Earth, an internet-led project in which RDF Digital has partnered with the Ukrainian space agency to send content generated by Bebo users into space, with RDF Television developing a TV format around the concept.

The commissioning challenge

"I'm not convinced people understand 360-degree commissioning," agrees James Kirkham, director of digital producer Holler. "The term implies ticking every box from internet to SMS, podcast to TV, which producers do without working through the implications for each or whether that best serves the idea."

Simon Nelson, controller, portfolio & multiplatform, BBC Vision admits there is some truth in this. "It's much harder to commission this type of media than traditional programming," he says. "We're learning what the right development process is and there are huge cultural changes to overcome."

Nelson has helped to plan BBC Vision's commissioning strategy, which broadly splits activity into programme-related content and "product" - new forms of content that may or may not have some link to TV output. Each programme automatically has its own web page; some get additional support while around 10 a year are cherry-picked to become major multi-platform commissions. 

"'Product' has proved the most complex area," says Nelson. "It is absolutely key if the BBC is to thrive and maintain its relationship with the public so we need to crack this. The aim is to transform our business by integrating new media talents with linear commissioners rather than completely overhauling the operation."

Already £1.3m has been committed to original online drama, placing the BBC in competition with social networking site Bebo, which already commissions long-form dramas such as Sofia's Diary. First up is girl-band drama Mouth to Mouth from Avalon Television, which will start online and on mobile before airing on BBC3.

While Nelson recognises it will take time to revamp the decision-making tiers at the BBC and install a model which accounts for digital at a project's inception, the problem is arguably more acute at the UK's commercial broadcasters. They must also find viable business models to back online content.

Despite the growing appetite for online TV, it will represent less than 2% of total TV revenues by 2012, predicts analysts Screen Digest, which also suggests that just 15% of all online video consumed in the UK is actually monetisable.

"The scale of the audience and the emerging nature of online advertising means it remains a very nascent market," says Alex Green, managing director of portal at Virgin Media. Virgin's intention, he says, is to drive viewers to multiplatform, where it can reach different demographics. While Virgin has produced original online content related to TV shows (Living TV's Ibiza and Britain's Next Top Model), its pure online content remains marginal.

ITV's strategy has also been to put TV first but this recently changed with the merging of its online web and TV businesses. The aim now is to promote closer co-operation between the divisions and build on the company's 360-degree strategy. "To date ITV.com has been focused on catch-up rather than on original content," says Kate Bradshaw, head of online commissioning, "but [our strategy] is to get involved from the outset of production and to be immersed with script writers and production teams in order to decide what would work on the web."

Bradshaw points to Britannia High as an online and interactive template for the future. "ITV.com is now looking to receive proposals at the earliest stage possible - the BBC is not the only 360-degree commissioner in town."

Sky has created bespoke online support for its major TV brands such as Gladiators as well as dipping its toes in online-only content such as entertainment daily Showbiz Showdown. "Our online strategy includes user participation, voting and text, but video is becoming increasingly important," says Andrew Hawken, Sky.com editorial director. "Where we have big TV brands we take a 360-degree approach and build interactive content into the pre-production schedule. But we also have ad-funded web-exclusive videos."

The end of ratings?

One difficulty is a commissioning heritage which judges success by overnight ratings. "We don't yet have an industry-recognised way of measuring success online so it naturally has an impact on broadcaster behaviour," says the BBC's Nelson.

Endemol's head of broadcast in digital media, Jim Harrison, adds: "TV commissioners won't get excited about 360-degree content until all the Barb results and page impressions are married and commissioning becomes the responsibility of one person - in effect a brand manager.

"Endemol has one producer who oversees all platforms for a particular project. We present cross-platform propositions which aggregate a 360-degree budget, but at the broadcaster this becomes disconnected and the budget gets hived off."

But Adam Gee, Channel 4's new media commissioner, detects a mood change. "I've had TV commissioners asking for overnight web stats. There's genuine buy-in from TV."

Channel4 Education has a pilot project with digital marketer iCrossing measuring metrics such as programme-related blogs, friends on Bebo or del.icio.us tags (online bookmarks).

"We're working to include more qualitative measures asking how teenagers and teachers respond to our projects," explains commissioning editor Matt Locke. "There's the 1-9-90 rule: 1% of audience is immersed, 9% are avid fans and 90% are casual users. We've now started to measure on that basis."

It's no coincidence that Locke's department is held up by many producers as an exemplar of forward-thinking cross-platform strategy. "C4 Education understands the central lesson that a 360-degree commission is best approached with an online sensibility first and you spin off TV from that," says So TV's Stewart, who has made the cross-platform Year Dot project for Locke in partnership with Holler.

Community is crucial

Other lessons applicable to cross-platform concepts include establishing a dialogue with your intended audience based on content. "Community is vital and means allowing people to discover a show and advocate it to their peers," says Holler's Kirkham, who has delivered online communities for C4's Shameless and Skins.

Such activity shouldn't be confined to the show's launch. "You have to have a vision of a project's lifecycle," says Gee, while Locke wants projects that will work over much longer than six months. "We're moving to an 18-month commissioning cycle; [a project spends] six months in development, then six to 12 months online. It's the only way to build an audience," he says.

Marketing is a part of the product now, Locke adds. It doesn't matter how good the content is if no one knows it's there. "Getting an audience online is very challenging," agrees Nelson. "Part of the answer is to ensure every programme has a permanent web page which will show up on search results. We're also trying to force commissioners and producers to think about navigation issues. How will people find it? How can we make use of communities and viral marketing?"

Locke stresses the need to be platform agnostic. "It's about recognising where an audience who is passionate about the subject goes," he says. "We'll reach a point in five years where commissioners won't think in terms of platform but just in terms of trying to reach an audience."
Even though TV will remain the pre-eminent medium, there's no reason why producers can't use the web to incubate projects. "Sometimes it is important to prove an idea can work on different platforms, by extending a TV idea to another platform as a loss leader or at cost to show how it could work," says Kirsty Hunter, head of interactive at Lion Television.

So-called "online democracy" uses the net as a testbed for formats and could be an alternative commissioning route. "Broadcasters could float several pilots online and see which gains most traction," suggests Kirkham. "The producer can build an audience and the winner would receive the commission."


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