Active TV slowly emerging
A shift is underway in television in Australia and it has nothing to do with digital versus analogue or the pay versus free shifts. Instead we are finally seeing the promise of TV as a medium of engagement. That promise sees a shift from the passive watching of TV (a ‘push’ approach) to the active engagement of TV (a ‘pull’ approach). The initial signs began a few years ago with the rise of voting lines for the ‘so you think you can take two big idol brothers’ TV shows. At that point TV producers began handing control of their shows over to the crowds that watched them, though not completely. The active-ness saw the viewer become physically involved albeit in a small way by getting out of their couches to grab their phones to express their choice of who to keep on the show they were watching. I’m waiting for a similar approach to a murder mystery, but I digress.
The next impetus for the push came less from the TV shows themselves and more from the makers of gaming sets – the Wii being the first dominant model with both Nintendo and X Box following suit. The shift toward using the TV screen in conjunction with a software program saw Wii Fit and similar offerings encourage people to get off the couch and exercise. The difference between this approach and that of the VHS/DVD fitness programs is that a small camera puts the end user ON the screen. The passive, became active and the active then started to engage. And customers across all industries WANT to engage.
Last week the ante was upped again with Junior Masterchef conducting an on screen, real time cooking class. Both my 5 year old and 8 year old ‘wanted to cook’ and I spent a frantic 15 minutes prior to the start of the show collecting ingredients from our supermarket (not the show sponsor). Thankfully the other significant adult in the household is a gun at cooking and took the reins whilst I watched or cleaned up on the run. The active viewer became the engaged viewer and this is the type of shift that TV programs need to make to stay relevant – first hand control of the program over to the audience and then get the audience actively engaged.
A few tips for the producers of Junior Masterchef – next year start the program earlier – it finished too late for most younger kids to either partake or meant a late additional (sweet) meal which was no good. And the online instructions were small and clumsy – that was a layout problem with the page and should have been picked up – make the instructions easy for kids to follow – that wasn’t the case. And for the rest of us the lessons are huge – regardless of your industry work out how to get your potential customers to engage with your products, rather than be passive users.
Futurist Jack Uldrich has posted an item to his website looking at Ten Trends shaping Government today. Although each item is arguable and may be context specific depending on ‘which’ Government you’re looking at, it’s a good overall take suggesting things to do with data, the interenet, crowdsourcing and the like. However I think Jack…
Read More >Sir Paul Nurse has ‘weight’ when it comes to science. His position is the head of The Royal Society in the United Kingdom and in an address in Melbourne he suggested that we need to keep politicians away from scientists: “It also emphasises the need to keep the science as far as is possible from…
Read More >I’ve been thinking long and hard about what to call 2013. After saying 2011 would need to be the International Year of Resilience (much still needed) and 2012 the International Year of Problem Solving I’m thinking now that Crowdsourcing (the idea of seeking assistance beyond your own capabilities from the ‘crowd’ often through social media)…
Read More >There’s lots of talk about ‘next big things for 2013’ right now, just as there has been in past years. Rather than join the cadre of prognosticators, trend experts and (not so) disguised salespeople laying claim to knowing about what ‘will’ be for the coming 12 months, I offer an alternative approach – here’s five…
Read More >Here it comes, the 21st of December 2012 – the last known recorded date on the Mayan Calendar and for years people have wondered why the Mayans never got around to extending beyond 2012. What did the Mayans know that we didn’t and should we be thinking about opening our Christmas presents early this year?…
Read More >As a Strategic Futurist I love a good scenario like the rest of us in the futures community. And where I choose to diverge from many in my field is in the pragmatic applications of futures and foresight thinking. Scenarios left as ‘what ifs…?’ are at best, theoretical. All of my clients and most of…
Read More >Over at The Australian Strategic Planning Institute an observation has been made about the so called Top Ten Trends for 2013 and whether, with deeper consideration, the trends suggested deserve their place as new, or emerging or whether in fact, by relying upon them you might be chasing a ship that has long since sailed.…
Read More >Creative Commons is an approach that attempts to ensure that information in its various forms, can be shared by others for free. That is my take on it at least. And over time we’ve seen some major organisations shape the idea of ‘free’ to ‘free with conditions’ and ‘free for a fee’. The last one…
Read More >Some topics are too big to cover in a few minutes on radio. In this brief snapshot, the ABC Darwin’s Vicki Kerrigan and I chat about energy costs, causes and the future ahead for places like Darwin You can download the media file here: Marcus Barber Future of Energy
Read More >What does a City tell you of itself, by how it shows itself? There’s much to be learnt by noting the small yet ‘obvious’ signs of life in any city you visit, that reveal to a certain extent, it’s ‘true self’. I’ll mention a few cities here but will focus on my most recent visit…
Read More >