Futurescape - digital entertainment, online television and social media R&D

Welcome to Futurescape

Futurescape is the London-based independent new media research and development company which focuses on emerging opportunities and innovation in the digital entertainment and social media markets:

Research

Publishing multi-client reports on emerging opportunities in digital media. The most recent titles are 2008: The Birth of Online TV and Marketing Success via Video Social Nets. For further research, read our case studies of social media marketing campaigns.

Development

Conceptualizing, producing and launching innovative projects for major television and entertainment clients. See our Innovation Portfolio and read our blog below for the latest news and commentary.

Did audience interactivity kill KateModern?

Jemima Kiss reports in The Guardian today that Bebo will end its teen drama KateModern in June (Bebo’s KateModern to end next month).

There is no explanation why the show, which launched in July 2007, is being ended.

Has the decision to follow audience feedback and kill off the main character in January 2008 backfired?

One major advantage that online TV has over broadcast TV is its potential for audience interactivity. “Interactivity” has multiple meanings, which we’ll explore in detail in a future post, but it certainly includes taking into account the viewers’ opinions about characters and storylines.

This sensitivity to audience reactions led Bebo and the production team to kill the main character.

“Asked why she killed Kate, Bebo international president Joanna Shields said: ‘We did actually, because the audience didn’t fancy her. We constantly take the pulse of the network about how they feel about a particular thing.’ ” (via PaidContent)

Our research for 2008: The Birth of Online TV concluded that interactivity can be both a catalyst for creativity, with viewers contributing and inspiring plot ideas, for instance.

Yet it also has the potential to be a straitjacket, pushing the writers and producers into decisions that diminish rather than enhance the drama.

In this case it seems that Bebo and the producers decided community opinion was so strong they had no option but to follow it.

Killing the main character does have significant dramatic potential. Hitchcock’s Psycho is entirely structured around establishing Janet Leigh as the main character in one mystery (she steals money from her employer) and then suddenly murdering her. The plot then switches over to solving the mystery of her death.

KateModern used much the same approach, launching season two with Kate’s death as the starting point for a “Who killed Kate?” storyline.

However, for any television series, online or broadcast, this has the serious downside that once the murder mystery has been solved, where does the storyline go next? In this case, to cancelling the whole series, it seems.

Blogging about the show ending, writer Luke Hyams and the production team praised their viewers: “Our online audience is so incredibly reactive and encouraging and as a production team we feel really privileged to have so much interaction and feedback.”

No doubt this is true, but as Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger cautioned, in the context of newspaper journalism, “You should pay attention to your readers, but not be driven by them.”

Would KateModern have been better served by listening to the audience, but nevertheless persevering with Kate as the main character?

Letters on online TV opportunities

Will agencies and indies grasp the new opportunities offered by online TV?

In this week's issues of Broadcast and Campaign magazines, our letters argue that Internet television offers indie producers the chance to launch global hit shows and that it is also at the very forefront of how advertising and content will work together for the rest of the century.

Click to read the full text of both

Omnicom backs Gemini Division

So far, MindShare has been taking the lead in matching major sponsors with online shows (see our post on Unilever and MindShare), but rival Omnicom is starting to catch up and Gemini Division is the first show that it’s backing.

Gemini Division is a sci-fi thriller starring Rosario Dawson (Sin City) as an NYPD cop who uncovers a global conspiracy to create simulated life forms or Simulants.

NBC Universal’s Digital Studio has picked it up for 100 x 3 mins episodes from producer Electric Farm Entertainment (which made the Web animation Afterworld) and Omnicom’s OMG Digital is going to arrange brand integration for Intel, Microsoft and UPS.

Check out the teaser trailer....

Try Peter Gabriel's The Filter for online video

Peter Gabriel's new recommendation service The Filter is now in beta. It aims to help users discover new entertainment, across online video, television (not launched yet), movies and music.

The online videos are coming from aggregators including YouTube and Veoh, though it seems that the search only covers music and movies right now.

We've already joined, so if you'd like to try it out too, just e-mail us at ozlem@futurescape.co.uk or colin@futurescape.co.uk and we'll send you an invitation.

First impressions (from our comment on TechCrunchUK).

Just been looking at it briefly for the online video, which seems to be mainly (only?) from YouTube and Veoh. Search doesn't yet cover the video, only music and movies.

MySpace’s global vision for online shows

MySpace is now a global hub for commissioning, testing and distributing original online shows and formats to television broadcasters around the world.

It has become News Corp’s television production R&D division, with an international footprint.

How? The deal

MySpaceTV already commissions original shows, matches them with sponsors and broadcasts them online. It also has the rights to represent them to US broadcasters. What had been missing was international distribution to broadcasters outside the USA. This was remedied in a deal announced at MIPTV.

Original online shows commissioned by MySpace can now be distributed globally to television, DVD and merchandise under a new deal with distributor ShineReveille.

(Shine is an indie production company set up by Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch, founder of News Corp, which is MySpace’s ultimate owner.)

MySpace retains both US television distribution and global Internet distribution rights.

At the very least, this deal gives MySpace shows such as Roommates and Special Delivery the chance to be broadcast on television around the world.

But MySpace is putting forward an even larger vision for the future of original online shows. A future that has MySpace at the global heart of it.

How do online shows migrate to TV?

Michael Learmonth writes in The Silicon Alley Insider, “It's hard to find a serious producer of Web content who will admit to harboring hope that TV will come calling. Michael Eisner sold Prom Queen into international TV syndication, but that's considered an outlier, not the core of a Web business model. So what is that model? Create a modestly budgeted show, with a narrow audience in mind, that you think would appeal to specific sponsors, like For Your Imagination's DadLabs. Or, create a show expressly for an advertiser, like MSN's In The Motherhood.” The Web-To-TV Dream: Not The Dream, Anymore.

There certainly is an emerging market where the new Internet TV studios, such as 60Frames, can produce on a low budget and look to make their money back entirely online. And no doubt some producers are delighted to bypass networks as gatekeepers to audiences. (Although sponsors and social networks commissioning online shows are emerging as the new gatekeepers.)

However, the overall picture is much more mixed than the headline and post suggest.

What does it mean when we talk about migrating an online show to TV? It can include at least (and this is not an exhaustive list):

1) The actual video transfers from Web to TV

Indie band mockumentary The All-For-Nots, from Eisner's Vuguru studio, is being shown on ManiaTV.

2) Simultaneous release on Web and TV

Again, The All-For-Nots premiered simultaneously online and on cable network HDNet and mobile operator Verizon.

TV vs online TV?

(Credit: Photo by James Cridland under CC Attribution licence)

We're debating the merits of TV vs online TV as a venue for original scripted comedy and drama with "English Dave," who regularly blogs an insider's view of the ups and downs of UK screenwriting in Was it something I wrote?

Dave kicked off the debate in his post Internet Hype?

"I'm about to commit heresy. For the next twenty years at least, unless a HUGE player gets involved, TV will still be the primary method of delivering scripted entertainment."

He goes on to raise several crucial and thought-provoking points about the future of TV vs online for comedy and drama and of course, we couldn't resist replying and arguing the case that "online is an ideal venue for scripted comedy and drama."

Click below for Dave's full post and our in-depth reponse, covering innovation in funding and production, new online formats and how the the relationship between broadcast TV and online TV is developing.

Catch Current TV at the bus stop

Fun interactive street ad for Current TV in London, with a video player at a bus stop.

This is becoming a popular way for British TV channels to make people aware of their shows, by catching them when they're waiting for a bus. On the street side (first pic), it's a poster. But inside the shelter (second pic), there's a whole video interface, where people can touch a picture to choose what to watch and they can even plug in their iPod headphones for better sound quality than the built-in speakers. On the way back, we were playing with the interface and the bloke beside us offered his headphones, so it's obviously a great icebreaker for people, too.

Unilever and MindShare – online TV front-runners?

Futurescape’s tracking of online TV sponsorship has revealed a clear determination by Unilever and MindShare to be the front-runners in understanding how to connect with audiences via online television.

The combination of Unilever products and MindShare’s online television savvy is funding a whole slate of big-budget shows, some now into their second season.

In the UK, Bebo has just announced that its new teen drama Sofia’s Diary is to be sponsored by Unilever’s Sure Girl deodorant. Viewers will be invited to contribute articles about "What makes you sweat?," for a chance to appear in the show. The deal was arranged by MindShare Performance and MindShare Interactive.

In the USA, Unilever’s Degree deodorant is backing the second season of The Rookie, an online spin-off from Fox’s thriller 24. The six-episode series is produced by MindShare Entertainment and production partner Science + Fiction. The partners have also created two seasons of the sit-com In The Motherhood, funded by the Unilever Suave brand that includes hair, skin and, yes, deodorant products.

For more on In The Motherhood and an exclusive interview with Brad Curtis of Science + Fiction, see 2008: The Birth of Online TV.

Campusfood sponsors Dorm Life

Dorm Life, the college mockumentary featured in Futurescape's report 2008: The Birth of Online TV, has a new sponsor - Campusfood.com, which enables students to order takeaways.

We consider that there are three significant aspects to the deal as a model for sponsorship and online TV production.

The first is that the sponsor is not only appropriate for the viewers' demographic, but that it also adds value by providing a useful service that viewers can take advantage of immediately. Dorm Life fans can click through from the site to start ordering food via Campusfood.

The second is that the integration into the show has the potential to be highly effective.  The characters are exactly the right customers for Campusfood, so seeing them using it in the show won't jar.

The third is that the Dorm Life format comprises both episodes that are already completed and also web-cam style vignettes. The vignettes can be shot to include a sponsor that has signed up after the production of the main episodes has finished. This split-production method is highly flexible not only for storytelling, but also commercially.