TV and ads let viewers create the content
March 6, 2007
Ever conscious of a good trend, TV networks and advertisers are adopting the YouTube model of viewer-created content.
VH1, currently airing the third season of "Web Junk 20," will next month premiere the Jack Black-hosted "Acceptable TV," which attempts to fuse TV with the Web. In February, Nickelodeon debuted a two-hour programming block called "ME:TV," featuring contributions from 10-year-olds. TLC last week began a six-part documentary series, "My Life as a Child," where children were given cameras to videotape their lives.
Also, high profile consumer-created ads for Doritos, Chevy and Dove ran during the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards.
But how well can TV play the Web's game? A large part of the appeal of video-sharing sites is that anyone can upload a video in a heartbeat, and that clips of Mentos exploding and men dancing are just a click away. Though now more interactive with on-demand features, television offers far less freedom for the viewer.
Instead, the appeal of amateur video on television is wrapped up in the idea that TV is still a superior medium to the Web -- it's the big leagues. You can drop your video into the online wilderness or -- as a game-show host might exclaim -- "You can be on TV!"
"As exciting as the Internet is, there's still something different and perhaps more glorious about your creation showing up on national television," says Tom Ascheim, executive vice president and general manager of Nickelodeon.
The channel's "ME:TV," which airs weekdays 5-7 p.m., includes videos submitted by kids (with parental permission) and a segment called "Web Wallers" where four participants are shown via Webcam. Cohost Jordan Carlos has called it "the ultimate mash-up of online and on-air."
Reality TV, of course, has been a huge beneficiary of the public's desire to be on TV -- as have older shows like "America's Funniest Home Videos" and "Candid Camera." But, now, contestants might shoot, edit and star in video that gets them on a program.
Current TV, now in about 40 million homes, predates the YouTube sensation with its viewer-created "pods," which make up a third of its programming. Joel Hyatt, who cocreated Current TV with Al Gore, says, Current wanted to level the playing field in television, rather than unveil itself as a Web site. But others wonder if TV should stick to what it knows best: professionally created content.
"Television is and has been in something of free-fall for quite a while -- just like the movies, just like the newspapers -- and they're doing everything they can to reverse it," says Martin Kaplan, professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication.
Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.
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