Internet! It’s Evolving!

Do you remember that advert on the BBC, “TV it’s evolving” spoken over the Coldplay Clocks track? Well now it should be “Internet and TV, it’s converging.” Project Canvas, which you may or may not have heard about is, yes I know, another set top box for your TV. Like my own Virgin Media box it has all TV (if I pay for them), pay per view, ITVPlayer, iPlayer, 4OD and even VirginPlayer but Project Canvas is different. It will be the culmination of the Internet, or at least the video part of it including YouTube, Vimeo, Daily Motion to name a fraction of the few, with TV, effectively merging the two. As was said at a Shooting People conference I went to over the weekend “terrestrial TV as we know it will always be there, it will never change, it will just become a dated format with less popularity”, which sounds like radio to me and I love radio. With statistics popping up like more people watching BBC’s iPlayer now than actually watch the BBC TV channels the questions that arise are numerous with a few ringing in many an investor’s ear. To name a few: what will happen to scheduling if you can watch anything at any time? What will happen to advertising if you can use your mouse to move the timer past them (unless watching ITVPlayer)? What will happen to drama series if there’s no-one to pay for them to be made? Of course the final one stings this director’s ear. My thought is that they have to get better. They have to push the talent to the top in order to attract the investors, or is that the other way round? This whole moment in history is very confusing for the TV/Internet current grey area. Inevitably it has to come together and inevitably branded advertising will have to follow its audience if it wants the public to know about its products. A step in this direction has been taken by the company MOFILM. They set up short film competitions from specific product or branding briefs (it’s worth checking it out). What is the next stage? Of course people have beaten us to it in the innovation stakes with the Ford car company paying for Internet drama “Where are the Joneses?” and Bebo sponsored “Kate Modern” (good ideas, but not as developed as “Pizzaman” I might add). Even the BBC got there before anyone with an interactive series called “Wannabes” despite the enormous swaying to the Internet with their flagship “EastEnders”. The truth is nobody knows which way its all going to go but a few things are obvious: people love good drama series, companies want you to buy their product and market advertising is changing at a pace that is mind-bogglingly difficult to keep up with. Did you know that the recent Shane Meadows feature “Somers Town” was even paid for by Eurostar? So if TV and Internet do merge then it leaves this blogging director with a question: will there be a day when a neighbour will talk to us about what they watch and we’ll have never heard of any of it? (This would of course be because there is so much of it out there and we’ve chosen our own specific set of programmes they may not have heard of either.) A scary prospect but this is where “Pizzaman” beats them all. Surely you and your neighbour still want to see your street in a programme? Aren’t you more likely to watch because of your own patriotism to your home area (why else would you live there)? Would this not unite you? Would it not unite a city? Would this not spread like wildfire and wouldn’t you want to be part of it? Who knows, but I think you would.