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Know thy medium

As you may know, I am interested in how broadcasters are forging new partnerships with community groups and others who have been their audiences.

In the old world, the audience gathered round and absorbed what the broadcasters told them – today the audiences insists on being involved.

My view is that the submission of randomly gathered user generated content does not constitute a relationship and is not particularly revolutionary; the deal has to run a little deeper than that.

The BBC in Leeds is planning a new series of music shows, ‘Graham Liver Introduces’ which demonstrate that they are looking to develop production partnerships with communities and groups.

The show is a production collaboration between four groups – Leeds College of Music, Leeds Metropolitan University's School of Graphic Design, local musicians and the BBC. I can’t imagine that much cash has exchanged hands, but the project will appeals to those groups because they are genuinely passionate about their respective contributions and are being recognised by the BBC – which of course is good for the CV.

The media of radio, TV, the internet and live music performances are all different spaces with distinctive cultures and creative opportunities. The success of any creative media project is often dependent on how well the produces have understood and worked within that particular space. For decades radio and tv production units have never really seen eye to eye and have consistently misunderstood how each other works. The integration of TV, radio and the web into common newsrooms, for example, has been quite painful (as far as I have see); each group claims a different way of working. I think this springs form the fact that each medium presents its own creative opportunities. Know thy medium, is perhaps the call.

The proposed show appears to be a radio show adapted for TV and broadcast on the internet (a point made by one of my team members). So, what makes and internet show specifically? How can it be distinctive and true to the medium? We shall be interested to see how this show adapts to the space. I’m sure it will be a great success. (Mark W)

You can read about this project here

More than fires, floods and explosions?

I'd like to pick up from an earlier point I made about the there only being a narrow range of UGC offerings to broadcasters - namely fires, floods and explosions. 

This type of material fits well into broadcast news programmes where one of the objectives is to be first with the news. Breaking news before anyone else and with pictures, has long been a mark of a good news service. Footage of breaking news supplied by the public can be a springboard to success for a broadcaster in this respect.

Broadcasters can build authoritative reports around this kind of footage while retaining some kind of ownership and still managing to achieve differentiation between themselves and other services. Perhaps to broaden the range of public UGC used may be to hand over some ownership, especially if they enter into a more collaborative partnership.  In doing so the broadcaster may risk losing some control.

Look North from Leeds has been running a series of one minute films which are part of a film-making competition. Interestingly, for a whole minute, you wouldn't know you are watching Look North - no branding, no familiar presenters, different style. If you switched on the output at the start of the film you may be confused about whose service you are watching. This is a brave step.

In my time at the BBC, I saw the it move from being a producer led organisation to a marketing led organisation. High levels of creative control required to keep the output 'on message'. Every world, every piece of design, every film has to subscribe to the values  and rules of the brand.

My thinking is that broadcasters who really want to embrace a production relationship with the public have to address this issue of control. To carefully control the work being produced is to employ free slave labour for a corporate end. For a broadcaster to open the door to fresh and creative expressions might be to risk unusual, 'off message' voices access to their brand.   

If the broadcaster is to produce a brand that is resilient to public access brand pollution, it will have to embrace a production partnership with the public as part of its brand image. This will require a major investment and will not be cheap option, it should be seen simply as a cost cutting strategy.

So can we as broadcaster make this access - this open door hospitality - an essential part of our brand image?  Can we go into a genuinely creative partnership with the public where it is more than fires, floods and explosions? (Mark W)

East Leeds FM

Community radio for East Leeds is proving popular with listeners and is a great way for young people to get involved with the media. I had the pleasure of giving some of the volunteers a guided tour of the ITV Calendar studios and boy were they keen.

As part of the visit they produced a podcast in which they asked me a number of probing questions about ITV Local Yorkshire, and so I shall provide this link. (Mark W)

Have you got the nerve TV

Here's a refreshing idea. Mark Bowness behind Tribewanted has come up with an idea for a new kind of production company. For a modest sum you can become one of 3000 executive producers - people looking for adventure, people with ideas and people with production skills.  He promises that all the participants will share in the success of the specific projects he is proposing.

Whichever way you look at it, this is another way of pulling together and managing the undoubted talents that exist in bedrooms, garages and sheds everywhere. Quite how they will interact I'm not completely sure; What will be the nature of their working relationship?  If the whole production process can be contained within this virtual workspace it will be revolutionary. (Mark W)

Have you got the nerve TV

But is it a revolution?

Whenever we talk about user generated content, the subject of July 7 usually comes up. At the time of the bombings it is said that one BBC executive sat at home watching the user generated images streaming onto the news and declared, "this is a revolution".  But what kind of revolution is it?

Back in the late 1970s I was a teenager contributing to my BBC local radio station output. Along with a number of other citizens, I would take my tape recorder out and capture anything that might be of interest. BBC Radio Leeds, my station, also employed the talents or Harry Gration as sports reporter and Frank Pagden as religious  producer among other "citizens" (most of whom became professional).

We used to make full use of the radio car - it would be out on the streets everyday and whenever a story  broke the reporter would round up citizen eye witnesses who would describe what they saw or experienced.

My point is that the excitement around user generated content, expressed by the aforementioned BBC executive, is a very London centric response. My esteemed network colleagues seems less aware than most that UGC has been the lifeblood of local broadcasting for a very long time.

Viewers who send in footage are doing so by way of an eye witness account; Instead of describing what they witnessed, they are now able to show what they witnessed. But I don't think this is a quantum leap. I also think that the range of material offered in this way is very narrow - focusing, as it does, on fires, floods and explosions.

This is not to say that what we are seeing isn't revolutionary. It is true that whenever  something happens there will most likely be a citizen to record it - such has been the impact of technology. The professionals to feel the impact of this shift most are probably the news camera teams who may not be the first on the scene. (Mark W)