More than twenty local media companies attended a forum on the future of television at the Innovatory last week to discuss the new business opportunities which are opening up in the sector. The event – jointly organised with the Hackney Enterprise Network – brought together buyers and commissioning editors from major channels and fifteen Hackney-based documentary, video and film companies.
“The market for television and related activities is growing very rapidly, by almost twenty per cent a year,” Kevin Davey of the Innovatory told the audience. “At the same time, traditional broadcasting is coming to an end. The new wave of television expansion is interactive. The new programmes sought by commissioning editors are cross-platform - linking television, radio, and the internet - and in many cases they are also participatory, featuring viewer feedback and questions, viewer voting and the growth of online communities.”
“The companies which will succeed are those who can take existing genres and formats and flip them, transform them, or subvert them with something more edgy,”
“Channel Four has no in house production of its own,” she told the forum. “So we need new companies to pitch strong new ideas to us all the time. We’re actively looking for a new generation of talented programme makers to come up with proposals which are right for our viewers, who are younger than those watching BBC and ITV. And we are opening our doors to smaller production companies. We are determined that 20% of the new work we commission next year will come from businesses with turnovers of less than two million pounds.”
Channel Four encourages production companies to place sixty second and three minute test programmes on the Microdocs and FourDocs areas of its website. These are continually reviewed by commissioning editors and fees are paid for the best, which are then broadcast. The channel also offers a professional summer school and regularly assesses new movie scripts through its Extreme Cinema scheme.
Rishi Sankar, an Eastenders producer at the BBC, has just been appointed as the commissioning editor for Ability TV, a new channel which will launch next year. He explained that the new channel was looking for companies to make radical new programmes that would actively involve young viewers through web cams, blogs, audience stringers, and citizen media.
“Choice and opinion are highly valued by young viewers,” he said. “In order to be successful, soap operas, dramas, comedy slots, music and magazine programmes all need interactive and multi-platform components that will involve and retain them as viewers.”
“Imagine watching a show which includes a review of a computer game you’re interested in,” said Alestir Waller, the head of channel for Ability TV. “The kind of programme we intend to buy will offer you a trial run of that game in a separate window on your screen while you’re watching the show, then let you comment on the game via a web cam, and see your views broadcast before the programme ends.”
Other east
“In television today, the old divisions between creatives, technologists and audiences are being eroded,” says Patrick Nicholson of the Hackney Enterprise Network. “To win commissions in the fast-changing media business, creatives must start to work with technology, telecommunications and web experts who know how to bridge formats, deliver participation, and build online communities. South Hackney has exactly the right mix of companies for that to happen.”
