How Broadband Television Could Be a Real Turn-on for Communities

By Alex Graham

After much hype and anticipation, the broadband television revolution is finally with us. Or is it? All three commercial terrestrial channels have now launched broadband services and the BBC’s iPlayer is due to launch later this year. And for some time now, discussions have been taking place behind the scenes about a new commercial iPlayer which would provide a single broadband platform for content from all the major broadcasters – broadband’s answer to Freeview.

So far, the focus has been on "catch-up TV", providing new, more convenient ways of consuming traditional telly. And it works. Recently, after Sky+ had mysteriously failed to record an episode of Peep Show, I downloaded it from the Channel 4 web-site and watched it on my PC. No sofa and no plasma screen. But the show was just as funny.

But while catch-up may be the most immediate benefit of broadband, it isn’t necessarily the most interesting. There’s growing evidence that audiences are discovering the power of this new medium in ways which may surprise all of us.

Take Paul, "a 23-year-old freelance writer looking for work," as he describes himself on YouTube. In between looking for jobs, and inspired by the fact that his favourite show, The Sopranos, was nearing its end, Paul created the ultimate catch-up experience. He compressed all six seasons into one (as he described it) "whacked- out refresher". The Seven-Minute Sopranos is one of the funniest videos on YouTube and has been seen by almost half a million people.

Others are using broadband as a platform for their own material. And not just the vast tracts of YouTube which feel like a funkier (but not necessarily funnier) version of You’ve Been Framed. Buried among the dross (and the gross) there are some real gems. At Wall to Wall, we’re in talks with someone whose seven-and-a-half-minute Current TV video had all the ingredients of a successful prime-time format. And we’re not alone. North One’s new commission from Five Guinea Pigs features a bunch of young guys discovered doing their own stunts on the web.

Collectively, too, broadband audiences don’t necessarily behave as expected. They will naturally take content intended for one purpose and subvert it to their own ends. Take RDF’s Islandoo site. Originally intended to recruit contestants for the company’s reality show Shipwrecked, it’s as if the visitors to the site figured out quickly that their chances of falling in love (or simply shagging) were a lot higher than their chances of getting on the island. As a result, Islandoo has more than 30,000 "islanders" in its virtual paradise, including around 5,000 tagged as "fit", 9,000 as "hot" and 600 as merely "random". You can also search by home town and by star sign. You can also apply to be on Shipwrecked, though RDF is developing advertiser-funded content exclusively for the site itself. The wheel (or should that be the ship?) has come full circle.

And there are signs in the United States that the broadband explosion may be about to go mainstream. Take ThreadBanger. ThreadBanger is unlikely to feature in the Nielsen television ratings any time soon. It only has one show – Thread Heads – but around that show the broadband site allows viewers to create their own videos and blogs. Currently featuring on the site are Tracey Vibert’s "How to Hem a Pair of Pants" and Bianca Carrer’s funky necklaces made out of fridge magnets and cassette tapes. ThreadBanger is aimed at people who make their own clothes.

It’s one of seven micronet-works launched by the Manhattan-based Next New Networks. Other networks include Pulp Secret for comic book fans and Fast Lane Daily for petrolheads.

NNN has understood that while television is about audiences, broadband is about communities. And, crucially, communities liberated from the constraints of space and time which have bedevilled conventional television. The internet liberates you to build content solely around communities of interest.

The other interesting thing about NNN is that the guy behind it is not some geeky student from Silicon Valley, but the cable veteran Herb Scannell. Scannell had spent 10 years at Viacom running the kids’ channel Nickelodeon, where he achieved fame as the man who brought Sponge-Bob SquarePants to the unsuspecting American public.

Scannell has deserted cable because he sees broadband as the future. As cable television networks cannibalise each other’s share in an increasingly mature market, the untapped growth potential of broadband becomes increasingly attractive.

So, by all means, let me catch up with the Simon Ambrose winning The Apprentice finale or Simon Cowell being undone by Connie’s angelic voice. But let’s not miss out on broadband as a new way of not just consuming content but creating it, too.

Alex Graham is chief executive of Wall to Wall Television and chair of Pact, the trade association for the independent production sector

(c) 2007 Independent, The; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.