TV

The latest data on multi-country TV viewing figures doesn’t support the view that watching the box is going out of fashion. You can read the long, long , long report from OFCOM “The International Communications Market 2009” if you have a spare week.

Earlier this year we posted a series of examples of online communities in the TV industry. We looked at the way ‘old’ and ‘new’ media combine, how television broadcasters and production companies are working with online media. The examples we chose were all of ways in which online communities can be used to provide an additional set of experiences for a viewer, often after a programme has aired. From Channel Four’s Sexperience online community which supported the Sex Education Show to HGTV’s  Rate My Space online community for people to share home improvement photos and tips.

Watching TV is almost always a social experience.  We talk to the people in the room with us. We talk to our friends on the phone, by instant messenger or on Facebook. We talk to people with similar interests in forums and chat rooms. Some of us even just shout at the TV on our own. However we do it, TV often makes us want to talk, share opinions and express ourselves. And some TV programmes make us want to do this more than others.

In almost two weeks, comedian Jay Leno will be making his debut on a live comedy show to air at 10 pm. Not content to rest on his laurels, Jay Leno has been in intensive preparatiosn for his new show on NBC - running four miles a day, testing jokes at stand-up comedy venues and getting to the studio as early as 8 am - nearly one hour before anyone else - to tweak the design of his new set. Reflecting on a recent feature of Jay Leno in the Wall Street Journal, it's clear that there's a lot that Mr. Leno can teach the Fortune 500 about innovation:

I am just counting how many industries today are getting near their industry breakpoints, accelerated by the current crisis and changes in consumer attitude towards anything. With macro forces pushing a collision between previously unrelated industries and the smart ones know a reset is necessary. Media is on top of the list.

We return this week to our series of Online Community Examples. There is a lot of talk about the way ‘old’ and ‘new’ media combine - how newspapers are using Twitter and how television broadcasters and production companies are working with online media. So this week we take a look specifically at examples of online communities in the TV industry.

by: Mark Rogers

by: Gary Hayes

What may save TV may also truly grow Social Virtual Worlds. As online audiences continue to ignore TV and vanilla/social virtual worlds suffer from a lack of direction, perhaps the marriage of the two will save both from irrelevancy? A report by Gary Hazlitt in various TV branded virtual world spaces.

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

A new strategy of installing TV monitors at Borders to show original programming, ads, and weather, will bring "knowledge and entertainment" to the affluent book browsers who spend an average of an hour in the store. It'll also direct traffic to its web site and pave the way for more "cross-promotional deals with large media companies."

by: Mark Rogers

The huge success of Tina Fey’s Saturday Night Live parodies of Sarah Palin (see below) has pointed up something the TV networks increasingly see as a great new opportunity.