Virtual Reality TV, Peter Cowley

This talk, from an executive at Endemol (they of Big Brother and Deal or No Deal fame), was mostly about the acceptance of the fact that traditional TV production and development is an aging dinosaur in todays entertainment medium. The younger audience is playing increasing amounts of games, at the expense of the time they used to spend watching television. Good for us, not so good for the television producers.

Mostly this talk was telling us things that we already knew – that TV producers take a blinkered view of content production, and that kids and younger people prefer interactive media to non-interactive (TV and films). Web-based content, both games and social networking, are being used increasingly to maintain the reach of traditional platform holders such as the BBC or Channel 4.

Most interestingly, they claim to have done research that shows that as users grow past 18 and school leaving age, they tend to be less biased towards interactive media, and tend to start using their mobiles and PCs in ‘more adult’ ways. Personally, I suspect this is an outgrowth of the free-time factor, that the younger audience spends more time on interactive media because they have more time to spend! Once they have more interesting pressures on their time, the desire for interactive content drops away.

Still, a long talk for not very much reward.

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