The ”Age of Social” that most of us are experiencing right now, through Facebooks and Twitters and LinkedIns and Quoras, brings a lot of new possibilities to the world of television. But also a bunch of hitherto not-so-often-faced challenges.

For content creators and producers, one of these challenges is one that was addressed during a session I moderated at the Nordic Game conference a week ago. The session was named ”Fan Fiction: Free marketing or IP anarchy?” and addressed the increasingly common issue of fans electing to create content of their own, linked to whatever you have created.

One of the members of my discussion panel was Carri Bugbee, a social media marketing exec from Portland, Oregon. Her trackrecord includes being one of the very first to explore the power of Twitter by creating the — unofficial — @peggyolson persona to intersync with the narratives of the hit series Mad Men. She’s experienced the good sides – an overwhelming positive response from show fans and other co-creators – and the bad side – getting shut down by Twitter within a couple of days (yet later reinstated). I asked her how important will co-creating fans be for television in the future. Her reply merits a massive quote!

I feel like collaboration with fans is the ultimate form of social TV. Web 2.0 brought about social media, which allows web users to interact with other people and content. Merging social media with TV (and film) means fans will (or should) be able to interact with and sometimes even influence outcomes for TV and movie content. That could be as basic as sharing favorite movie lines with friends on their social networks or as complicated as influencing the direction of a character or story arc online.

In many cases it won’t be fan fiction because the majority of people on the web don’t have the impetus to create something elaborate. Most just want to pop in, make a comment and be done. But there are still plenty of people who will want to create something bigger and I think those numbers will only continue to rise. After all, we have an entire generation of teens and young adults who grew up with the power to create videos, sophisticated graphics and games at their fingertips — in many cases, in their pockets. Naturally, they will use their favorite characters, scenes and story locations as jumping off points for stories. 

Plus, creating fan fiction is becoming easier and more fun with new, specialized tools and platforms. SocialSamba has a great storytelling platform that not only provides simple ways to incorporate digital assets into a story, but also makes it possible to find people who like the same types of stories or genres such as Harry Potter or vampire narratives. There’s a new tool launching late this summer called Plotagon that fan fiction creators will also love. Fans will be able to make characters move and talk on screen just by typing a script.

All that said, most people who work in the burgeoning social TV industry right now aren’t thinking that much about fan fiction. The industry focus is primarily on building second-screen experiences for mobile devices. 

One example comes from Welcome to Sanditon, a continuation of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which in turn was an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that was released earlier this year. In Welcome to Sanditon, the users make up a large portion of the content. But there is a clear 90%-10% relation, according to the creators – 90% of the viewers, be they however young and tech-savvy, still want a good linear narrative more than anything else, while 10% want to jump in an co-create. But with this number set to rise as interaction and co-creation finds new forms to better integrate with the linear narrative, how then do we as creators and producers act to foster positive co-creation and avoid detracting and negative fan interactions? Bugbee sees simplicity as the core:

The best way to foster co-creation is to make it easy. Give your fans cool tools and digital assets they can mash up, promote those opportunities so fans know about them, and reward fans for their efforts. That could include a contest for the best content or character ideas or creating a community where people can meet like-minded fans, share ideas and work together.

There is an understandable reluctancy amongst IP owners and content creators to hand over part of the control over IPs to the eager hands of engaged fans. On the other hand, providing reasons to share, mash-up and co-create and giving the audience the adequate tools to do so, can only help IP owners to steer possible fan fiction in the desired direction. Also, an active audience tends to behave better if they know they are being observed by the original creators. So an acknowledgment of the audience’s interaction is a given. One final question – are there any definite no-nos when it comes to audience interaction and fan fiction? Says Bugbee:

The biggest mistake is to approach this stuff from an old-school marketing or production mentality where you would budget time and resources to support it for a finite amount of time and then just shut it down when that time is up. You can’t approach social media—whether that’s fan-fiction or any other activity—the way we did business before. 

Time-shifted and binge viewing has dramatically changed when people consume content. Streaming and VOD (video on demand) have changed how people consume content. That means, if you want to build an avid fan base, you need to support fans with engagement opportunities over shorter and longer product cycles than we’ve been used to. If someone wants to do everything you’ve laid out in one day, they should be able to. If they want to do it two years after your programme’s initially aired, they should be able to do that too.

If you want to build a community, that’s a 24/7 endeavour. For example, you can’t assign community managers or customer support personnel to work nine-to-five, Monday through Fridays if people are most active at 10pm on Saturday nights and might need help at that time. 

Of course, the ideal approach is to build something self-sustaining so members of the community can help each other, but that takes time and requires critical mass. The point is, you can’t just drop the ball and leave people hanging when fans expect to interact with your content. The world has changed. Fans and customers expect to interact with and discuss content on their own schedules.

So, there you have it. Now, only thing that remains to do is to boldly go forth and create!

New-look product sampling through a smart combination of in-store, TV and mobile

Cereal brand Weetabix recently extended into breakfast biscuits called Weetabix On The Go and invited UK consumers to snap up a sample – without leaving their sofa.

On Monday 22 April, the brand invested in a prime-time TV ad slot where it encouraged people to grab their phone to take a photo of the ad. The next day, they could take the picture into a branch of high street retailer Boots – which has 700 outlets across the UK – to claim a free sample of four biscuits.

Weetabix claims to be the first company to trial this Pay-By-Picture technology, which taps into second-screen behaviour (i.e. your phone is usually to hand when you’re watching TV).

The promotion forms part of a £6m ($9.3) marketing campaign for Weetabix On The Go, using the hashtag #takethebiscuit. BBH London, the brand’s ad agency, has also created a TV spot for the new biscuits (above).

Ben Cooper, group brand manager at Weetabix, said: ‘There is huge value in people taking pictures of our new products and sharing the images amongst their friendship groups… It is undoubtedly a brave move to replace financial currency with social currency, but we’re hoping that the 55% of people that currently use their smartphone whilst watching TV will take part in the unique retail initiative, try our new breakfast biscuit and become long-term customers.’

Contagious Insight

This is a really significant example of what can be done by targeting consumers through the two screens in their living rooms to drive footfall in-store. Weetabix has made it really straightforward for people to get involved: there’s no app that needs to be downloaded, all they have to do is point their phone at the screen and take a picture. Easy.

The pay-off for the brand is that Weetabix ends up as a picture on someone’s phone, perhaps alongside other photos of kids, pets and friends. One way in which brands need to tread carefully with mobile advertising is in not being too intrusive because it is such a personal medium. But here, by inviting people to take a picture and then claim a free sample with it, the brand leaves that decision to the consumer. It also enables them to forward the promotion to their friends if they so desire, while also creating a slight sense of urgency (you need to act on this coupon tomorrow).

This is the latest in a series of blog posts from Contagious Feed, a database of the most creative and effective marketing campaigns around. Contagious – a MIP Markets content partner – guides and advises brands and their agencies on competitor activity and future opportunities. More information here. And be sure to sign up for the Contagious newsletter here!

Introducing “Today’s Best Social TV”, a new series of blog posts by MIP Markets content partner VAST MEDIA. Each post will feature three case studies, outlining how networks and agencies are furthering social TV innovation right now. Prepare to be inspired!

HASHTAG-BASED RECORDING SERVICE (SKY, BRAZIL)

In late May, SKY Brazil teamed up with digital agency Isobar to launch a hashtag-based recording service on Twitter.

First, registered SKY users have to link their Twitter account with their subscriber number. The broadcaster tweets about its current and upcoming programme several times a day. When a tweet by the official SKY account @skybrasil mentions a TV show, users need to retweet it with the hashtag #skyrec to have their DVR at home record it. Here’s the demo video:

More information here.

CONTINUUM: INTERACTIVE VOTING CAMPAIGN (SHOWCASE, CANADA)

Canadian broadcaster Showcase recently revealed a Vine-based voting campaign for its sci-fi drama Continuum, to determine which one of two pre-produced season finales would be aired. Accompanying season 2, the broadcaster published Vine videos on the format site, through the official Continuum Twitter account and on its Facebook page after each broadcast episode – going deeper into the story and providing insights. The six-second web-exclusive videos focus on the pro- and anti-Liber8 conflict within Continuum, referring to a group of self-proclaimed freedom fighters which the series centres on.

Fans could share these videos with the handles @Liber8Now and @1FutureOurWay or create their own Vine videos. Additionally, fans could use the handle @ContinuumSeries with one of the dedicated hashtags #Liber8Now and #1FutureOurWay to post their own videos. Each mention counted towards a side of the conflict, which the user picked by sharing with the dedicated handle.

Showcase has produced two season finales with different storylines. The to-be-aired season finale depends on the voting results of the campaign. Selected participating fans were rewarded with merchandise and social shout-outs by cast members.

The Showcase campaign was launched in cooperation with the Canadian interactive agency Secret Location.

More information here.

TORNADO WEEK 2013: TWEET-POWERED TORNADO (THE WEATHER CHANNEL, USA)

The Weather Channel launched the programme initiative Tornado Week in late April. To promote this week full of tornado-related programming, The Weather Channel started a campaign on Twitter. By tweeting the hashtag #TornadoWeek, users could influence the wind force inside an office of The Weather Channel. People could watch the scenario via livestream on YouTube.

Every mention of #TornadoWeek raised the scale and boosts of the wind. The broadcaster said it would turn up the wind to the equivalent of an EF-5 tornado inside the office, if users generated 1,000,000 mentions on Twitter. Viewers could also tweet to the interns in the office by integrating @TornadoWeek into their tweet.

A dedicated website was set up, allowing people to keep track of all the actions during the Tornado Week. Besides programme announcements, users could look at tornado galleries, inform themselves about Weather Channel personalities and get tornado news. Additionally, The Tornado Hunt 2013 was part of the Tornado Week following a channel expert who travelled through the country seeking for tornados.

More information here.

More soon: meanwhile, check out all of VAST MEDIA’s MIPBlog posts here!

IHS Electronics and Media’s TV programming Intelligence tracks expenditure on TV programming by the leading free to air and pay TV groups in USA, UK, Japan, Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Australia.

This exclusive report highlights key figures from this new service, indicating which markets are the largest by revenue and programming spend with forecasts for 2013 and five-year trends in investment:

Highlights of the white paper include:

- TV Programming expenditure in key territories
- A five year outlook strongly impacting Southern Europe
- A special focus on original, acquisition and sport programming expenditure

To download this MIPBlog-exclusive white paper from IHS Screen Digest, click here

IHS Screen Digest is the largest media-focused research firm in the world with more than 50 analysts covering over 65 global territories.

Click here for full-size infographic

Viacom has unveiled the results of “When Networks Network: TV Gets Social,” its new multi-country study investigating the relationship between TV and social media usage.

The multi-country study involved social media diaries in the US, as well as online communities in the US, UK and Germany. International online surveys were conducted in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil and Russia with more than 5,000 Viacom viewers aged 13-49 who use two or more social media platforms on at least a weekly basis.

Out of 24 social media activities tracked, three distinct types of motivations for TV-related social media use emerged: Functional (searching for show schedules, news, exclusives); Communal (personal branding, connecting with others); and Playful (gaming, entering contests).

Of the countries included in the study, Viacom found that viewers in Brazil embrace TV-related social media activities the most frequently, while those in Germany are the least likely to do so.

1. Functional: Information Above All 

Function trumps all other motivating factors, including socialising, when it comes to TV-related social media use. This is true of all the countries in the study, with viewers in Germany leaning the most towards the functional motivations. Viewers are more interested in the experiences and content offered by networks and TV shows than communicating with others on social media. They use social media sites to:

- stay informed about air dates and times (44%);
- keep up with the latest show news (45%); and
- access exclusive show info (37%), video (36%) and plot clues (36%).

Functional motives are stronger for teens and young adults. Viewers 13-17 are most likely to use social media to search for show schedules and exclusive videos, while those between the ages of 18 and 24 are most likely to search for the latest show news and to access spoilers.

2. Communal: The Value of a Facebook ‘Like’ or a Twitter ‘Follower’

Communal factors are the second most common reason for engaging in TV-related social media use. Viewers reported using social media to brand themselves and share taste (34%); to connect with the show (28%); and to connect with other fans (28%).

One way viewers satisfy their Communal motivation is by “liking” a show on Facebook or “following” on Twitter. Viacom’s research has uncovered the long-questioned value of such Facebook “likes” or Twitter “follows” when it comes to TV. After “liking” or “following” a show, viewers were a full 75% more likely to watch that show. Viewers also watch more in an average of three different ways (live, stream, reruns), and engage more with TV shows and channels on digital platforms:

- 41% access its social media more
- 39% visit show/channel site more often
- 27% are more likely download related apps

“Liking” or “following” also satisfies functional motivations by providing show schedules and updates.

3. Playful: Social TV Games Matter

Third, playful experiences drive TV-related social media activities, including playing for rewards (24% to get freebies or enter contests) or playing games (25% games; 24% quizzes/polls).

- Over 30 percent play TV show-related social media games on a weekly basis.
- Of the social gamers who watch a TV show and play the related game, about 75% play off-season.
- TV-related gaming is a persistent touch-point and a way to connect year-round with viewers.

Social media games help drive viewership, with around 30% of respondents having gamed before ever watching a show. About half reported watching a show more due to the show’s social media game. Game shows, comedy and reality shows come in as the top genres for gaming.

4. Social Media and Show Discovery

Social media ranked third (39%) as a source of show discovery, behind promos (54%) and word of mouth (50%).  The exception is Brazil, where social media ranked even higher as a source of show discovery, second only to TV promos.

The research revealed that social media-fueled show discovery uniquely and positively impacts live tune-in, with viewers significantly more likely to watch a show premiere on live TV when that show is discovered via social media.

- Seventy percent are likely to watch the live debut of a show that was discovered on social media, versus 48% live if it was discovered elsewhere.
- Forty-one percent are likely to watch a show live past its first season if the show was discovered on social media, versus 28% live if it was discovered elsewhere.

Drivers of live tune-in from social media include Facebook friend’s comment, a show’s post, or a friend “liking” the show.

This post is adapted from a press release available in full here. Click here for more from Viacom (including on social TV) on MIPBlog.

“Audiences are passive bodies of people. Users are active. We believe creation using design is incredibly important, and that making differentiation between audiences and users is the most important thing.”

Paul Bennun, CCO, Somethin’ Else

On April 7, 2013, 150 TV and content executives, including digital strategists from broadcasting, production and distribution companies, as well as a new wave of online content creators and technology companies, gathered at the Majestic Hotel in Cannes, ahead of MIPTV 2013. Their mission: to redefine the future of TV, no less!

Top executives from All3Media, BBC Worldwide, Adobe, BSkyB, Canal+, Red Bull Media House, Viacom International Media Networks, ZDF and many more tackled the following topics:

- Creating for an audience of users
- Engaging an audience of users
- Monetising an audience of users

Find out what they said in the full document, below. And feel free to share!

This report was produced by MIPCube PLUS’ knowledge partner Accenture, with the help of Paris Dauphine’s Blog 226 team. You can also read MIPBlog’s MIPCube PLUS liveblog reports here.

Photo: The TV interface of Microsoft’s Xbox One, pitched as much as a set-top box as a games console…

With network TV suffering and digital platforms thriving, one could be tempted to think the medium’s future lies anywhere but in the TV set.

Asking whether “traditional” US TV is “tanking”, App Market.tv offered a number of key indicators in this sense recently. “Broadcast ratings in the key 18-49 demographic tumbled by 17% during the winter months when compared with a year earlier, according to Goldman Sachs, which called the decline “the sharpest pace on record”.” Add to this eMarketer’s finding that a total of 30% of respondents to a recent survey were inclined to at least consider cord-cutting, and you have a worrying state of affairs for US networks.

GigaOm then piled on the pain: “from April 2012 to March 2013, the industry lost a total of 80,000 subscribers, according to Leichtman Research. That’s the first time the research company has ever seen subscriber losses over a 12-month-period, leading president Bruce Leichtman to this assessment:

“First-time ever annual industry-wide losses reflect a combination of a saturated market, an increased focus from providers on acquiring higher-value subscribers, and some consumers opting for a lower-cost mixture of over-the-air TV, Netflix and other over-the-top viewing options.””

GigaOm reminds us that Leichtman is a sceptic in this domain, having famously claimed in 2010 that cord-cutters are “really just a bizarre breed of people”…

So if people are watching less and less TV on TV, where are they watching it? Microsoft gave a massive clue as it unveiled its new Xbox One, May 21. The replacement for the Xbox 360 console — that’s already in 76 million homes worldwide — is more than just a games machine. It’s also a set-top box, offering live TV from the get-go, claims the soft- and hardware giant (cf. above screenshot, and this video of how TV will work on the console). And as if to prove its point, Microsoft also revealed that Steven Spielberg is working on an Xbox-exclusive TV series based on the Halo gaming franchise…

So for the US’ biggest console-maker, TV is now just as important as gaming; and it intends to deliver both in a seamless online experience, before this year is out.

Then there’s Netflix, of course, which is becoming ever-stronger right now: tellingly, it now has more subscribers than AOL at its peak in 2002; and as AllThingsD reminded us, it still consumes a third of all US internet bandwidth each night, leaving Amazon, HBO, Hulu and even YouTube in its wake.

Speaking of the other online video giant, YouTube famously launched its first ever paid subscription offering mid-May in the US. However, the move seems more symbolic than anything else for now: not only is the content on offer hardly earth-shattering, but above all, on YouTube, a round “0% (of users) expect to pay for content”, as a scathing opinion piece on New Media Rockstars pointed out. Time will tell.

Where YouTube is still on fire is undoubtedly on two of its biggest channel-networks, Maker Studios and Machinima. In a great example of “corebiz meets new media”, the former recently hired Endemol’s former boss Ynon Kreiz as its CEO. Kreiz quickly jumped on the “YouTube is the new cable TV” bandwagon… except this time, he said “it’s even bigger!” Why?

“…because you have the unlimited capacity; everything’s global; there are very low barriers to entry at the initial stage; and, most effectively, there are advertising technologies that allow for a very targeted reach, very focused buys. It’s a dream for advertisers. So this new technology is creating a new market, really.”

Not forgetting Machinima: the young male-skewed YouTube network is now going massively mainstream, according to Salon.com, by giving that cherished demographic exactly what they want: “bad TV“… This shouldn’t last if the director of Alien, Blade Runner & Gladiator is anything to go by: as Deadline revealed earlier this month, Ridley Scott has partnered with Machinima, “to develop episodic sci-fi web programming.” Promising, to say the least…

So just how sustainable is all this burgeoning new activity? While SimplyZesty trumpeted that online video is the fastest-growing digital ad format right now, Variety suggested caution remains of the essence, claming “Original Internet Video Getting Big, But Still Not TV Big.” Late April, the Interactive Advertising Bureau released data saying online video now attracts 45 million US viewers per month. Seems a lot? It’s still “only 19% of all American adults, whereas according to Nielsen more than 95% of the population watches TV,” said Variety.

Still, let’s expect that 45 million to get much bigger pretty soon…

More industry news, as curated by the MIP Markets team, right here!

TV people like to talk an awful lot about the impact of social on content creation and the viewer experience these days, but what do they actually mean?

Well, if you’re looking for the answer, you might look to Geordie Shore, the hit Viacom series that’s become a phenomenal success for MTV UK over the last three years.

Born from Viacom’s number 1 international series Jersey Shore, and now broaching its sixth series, Geordie Shore is MTV UK’s highest-rating show ever, regularly reaching audiences of 1.5 million each week for all viewers, smashing its slot average six times over. The recent finale of Series 5 even delivered its highest ever ratings and a record audience for MTV in the UK.

And now Geordie Shore has gone global. Based on the unprecedented multi-season success in the UK and initial launches on MTV in Australia, Southern Europe, and mtv.com in the US, Geordie Shore now airs across all MTV networks across Asia, Latin America and Northern Europe – the first time a local MTV commission from anywhere outside the US has achieved this kind of exposure.

The reason for its success? Social engagement from the moment of inception.

Having cast eight vibrant Geordies to spark initial intrigue and engagement with millennials across the UK, we tuned into real conversations that lots of people were having (before the show even went to air). By massively amplifying those conversations, we created something really powerful. On that basis alone, Geordie Shore is a pretty good example of how social media is used to drive the content on our screens.

But it’s important to stress that social media is more than simply a staging post on the road to great content, or a place us TV executives go to plunder ideas. Increasingly, it’s the framework within which everything operates. For us at VIMN, ‘social’ is built into content from the moment of inception, and we start putting down the social media footprint for our shows before they’re even on air.

To see it in action, you only have to look at the Jersey / Geordie format. All the characters in both shows have a social presence; they are interacting in real time with the linear broadcast, and continue to engage with the audience long after the credits have finished rolling, through branded web content and other channels. We’re constantly seeing just how potent this combination can be in amplifying our linear programing and driving the audience back to it.

Meanwhile, the format reveals how show-time itself has been transformed, too. We’ve evolved from making programmes with a single, 24-minute narrative arc, to constructing them in such a way that the audience is rewarded with a series of “peaks” as the storyline unfolds – each providing a heightened opportunity for second and third-screen immersion which, in turn, creates the social buzz that sustains engagement.

Increasingly, our biggest challenge as programme-makers is to keep these peaks rolling in for the duration of a half-hour “format” show; it’s not enough to just sit back and enjoy the ratings. This may all sound quite familiar to anyone who plays video games, and for good reason. Both are built around the same sense of immediacy; of constant, “quick-hit” discovery for the consumer. (The parallel becomes even more striking when you consider the ways in which the two enable real-time social interaction. It’s almost inevitable that the content-technologists of the future will discover how to integrate them).

Programme making has evolved a great deal, even in the last 9 months – social, 2nd and 3rd screen narrative all impact the decisions in each episode, more than ever before, and not just on channels like MTV. Downton Abbey, ITV’s most successful drama of recent years, follows the “multi-peak” model surprisingly closely. Compare an action-packed episode of Downton with a languid episode of ITV’s 1980s equivalent, Brideshead Revisited, and the difference is clear.

At VIMN, we’ve always specialised in making fast-paced content, and leading the way in new formats. Programmes like Jersey Shore, Geordie Shore and now Gandia Shore in Spain, are taking that know-how to new levels.

Just a year ago, when you thought of a TV series, you would probably still look at it in terms of episodes and storylines. Now, you’d be more likely to look at it as a series of moments, each with a social dimension and a continuing narrative in the non-linear world.

Now that’s what we mean when we talk about creating a social experience.

Kerry Taylor is SVP & general kanager, Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) UK, Australia, Hungary, Russia and Israel; Philip O’Ferrall is SVP Digital, VIMN.

The past decade has seen the video-on-demand landscape change considerably with the arrival of newer technologies such as true streaming VoD, now steadily replacing nVoD. Satellite operators have reacted to an increasingly competitive market, launching DVR-based and broadband-delivered VoD services, allowing them to compete more effectively with cable and IPTV. Competition is not only coming from within the pay TV space though. As IHS Screen Digest says in this exclusive white-paper, “over-the-top services are starting to pose a threat to the pay TV model, although the threat remains nascent, for now“.

Some of the key facts and figures in this review:

- At year-end 2012, less than 350 million households globally were enabled to access on-demand services via their pay TV service (via DVR-based or streaming VoD solutions). By 2017, this number is forecast to increase to nearly 500 million households.

- IHS also estimates that pay TV consumtion has seen a ten fold increase between 2005 and 2012, with approximately 22bn on-demand content views globally in 2012 via pay TV VoD services, forecast to exceed 40bn in 2016. Pay TV VoD revenues are expected to exceed $8bn globally by 2017, growing at an annual rate of 15 per cent.

- Broadband penetration growth is expanding the reach of online VoD services. IHS estimates there were nearly 180m active connected devices in Western Europe and North America in 2012 – this is forecast to grow to nearly 500m by year-end 2016.

- With an ever-growing number of connected devices entering the market, IHS predicts PCs will represent less than 20 per cent of total active connected devices globally by the end of 2016.

To download this MIPBlog-exclusive white paper from IHS Screen Digest, click here

IHS Screen Digest is the largest media-focused research firm in the world with more than 50 analysts covering over 65 global territories.

Let me start by assuming something. I’m assuming that as you’re visiting MIPBlog, you have some sort of connection with the media industry. Moreover, you’re interested in where the industry as a whole is heading, what business opportunities lurk around the corner and what new ways of storytelling are on the rise. This leads me to assuming that you’ve also heard the term “transmedia” before.

I’m an avid believer in the powers of transmedia storytelling; fusing stories and story arcs through a common storyworld, to offer new entry points into the stories, new ways of interaction for the audience and new ways to monetise the content. I don’t believe these powers are going away anytime soon. What might be going away though, is the term by which they are called. At MIPTV a month ago I heard several voices from the TV industry confidently dismissing “transmedia” as no longer relevant.

So, is transmedia becoming a redundant term already? Will buyers and sellers and marketers and writers no longer have to care about such extravagances? Perhaps it’s still not really that simple. To be fair, the people I listened to and talked to who were dismissive of the term, were so mostly since they felt the media industry has already moved into a multiplatform territory, and the term, in their mind, was no longer necessary or even relevant for future use.

To get a second – and a third, and a fourth – opinion, I turned to the people who work with transmedia storytelling on a daily basis.

Jeff Gomez of Starlight Runner Entertainment has not observed such a trend, but rather sees a world where there is not nearly enough knowledge about transmedia:

“As Starlight Runner comes into greater contact with the corporate space and as we expand our teaching efforts globally, we are constantly shaken from the false impression that knowledge of transmedia practice is in any way ubiquitous. Though I’d be the first to celebrate mass acceptance, it is clear to me that the skill set [necessary] to do transmedia well is still very rare and that we are still in a phase of precedent setting rather than business as usual.”

Rob Pratten of Transmedia Storyteller and creator of transmedia narrative engine Conducttr is one of the people for whom transmedia actually is business as usual. His outlook is even more positive:

“I think the situation has improved actually. Transmedia is becoming more recognised as a term even if its meaning is different to different people :) I’m using it more rather than less.”

Fresh from the successful Kickstarter campaign for the Lizzie Bennet Diaries (LBD) – an adaption of Pride and Prejudice, rolling out on YouTube in 100 short clips, averaging 300.000 viewers per clip – Jay Bushman thinks we’re in a transitional phase:

“I think transmedia is a transitional term, like kinescope or nickelodeon. It’s going to be replaced at some point. Or maybe it won’t be replaced, but people will come to regard it as a more general term and one that doesn’t necessary need to fit a specific set of criteria.  Right now, there’s too much debate over whether something “is or is not really transmedia.” As if a litmus test for transmedia-ness it important or useful. There’s much less arguement over whether something “is or is not television.” We all recognise television when we see it – even if it comes at us in new ways and new channels. And yet television is a similar word to transmedia, but we’ve come to associate it with a much larger set of things than just “something you can view from far away.”"

Jay is doing his bit to aid the transition along; he acknowledges the strengths of traditional television as well:

“I think constantly about how to tell an LBD style story for traditional television. Everybody is so swept up lately in the Netflix “House Of Cards” model of releasing everything all at once, that I think many are missing the power of serialisation. Those pauses in between episodes or installments are the source of the power of a show, and the way that it can capture your imagination. “

Lizzie Bennet Diaries could serve as one example for the TV industry to look at when wonder whether transmedia storytelling has a value or not. The numbers are pretty impressive, as Jay explains:

“LBD had an average audience of 300k views per episode, and that was maintained all the way through 100 episodes. Even when in order to understand or care about episode 99, you needed to have watched all 98 that came before, we didn’t lose our audience. Anecdotally, we know that they stuck around because of the transmedia engagement in between the epsiodes made the show feel not like a series of individual epsiodes, but a single coherent experience.  But there are no metrics I can use right now to show how much a Twitter conversation between two charatcers on a Tuesday drives people to watch an audience on Thursday. But I know it works, and I’m looking for an opportunity to prove it on a larger scale.  LBD had a total audience of between 35 and 40 million – numbers that networks would kill for.  We can give it to them, if they’re willing to take a chance.”

So, is transmedia dead? Well, not as long as no better term comes along to explain the media world of today and the most complex ways of telling compelling stories using the technologies available. As soon as that happens though…