NBC
The team that made ‘The Voice’ a social TV hit
There’s no doubt that NBC’s new hit The Voice has set a gold standard for how to create a live broadcast in the age of the social web. Coverage on the show’s ratings and social media success continues to pour in since the first season’s finale last week.
The genius behind the digital success (and the fact that The Voice has been one the most aggressive shows to integrate Twitter on the air) is that social media isn’t seen as a marketing vehicle but as core to the entire production. Here’s an in-depth interview with Andrew Adashek, the Digital Producer for Mark Burnett (and startup guy) who shared how his team of social broadcasters are creating new roles within the Hollywood production chain.
What were some of the biggest successes?
For sure, the Twitter engagement and to connect with the audience in real-time and making it accessible to the coaches and artists. Giving the artists access right away. A lot of shows would sequester, whereas we were actively encouraging it. One of the bigger successes, we were able to pull back the chains. To grow organically.
What were some of the guidelines you gave to the coaches?
We didn’t want people to give spoilers really far in advance, don’t tell anybody, don’t spoil things that would ruin it for everyone, may not ruin the competition but there’s a certain element of surprise that would be fun. Also, profanity. Artists could use their own twitter accounts. We couldn’t show favoritism towards any one artists. We had to remain neutral, we had to give a fair amount of coverage and just play neutral. We wanted everything to be open and personally.
What was the relationship like with Twitter?
Twitter was super helpful in sharing what was working with us and showing us, and pulling back the vail and saying what was helpful. They gave us the tools we needed to fine tune #thevoice (when to put it on-air) and putting it up at key moments in the show so people were in control. Also to make that single hashtag let peopel connect universally on twitter around the show. They helped us see when we would see spikes in activity, when activity would slow down. When we hit the Social Media Room, we’d see great deal of buzz. We were pulling in interesting commentary from the viewers at home, who had awesome opinions.
How do you get a tweet onto live broadcast?
On our side, we’d pull in filter for the tweets we were looking for. We had a rundown of what we thought would happen next, what performances, I’d think about that experience and customize everything about the show. Real-time watching the show and watching the television. Things change very quickly without us knowing, so we’d need to update the filters.
If there’s an episode where two artists kissed, we’d look to see what people are saying. You have to be real-time. Then we would take all the information go through standards and legal. We built all the pieces so it would connect from that system to the expression which would actually show it on air. We would have it down to 15seconds from real-time to get it through everyone on the air. That’s probably what took by far the most energy and development to get it real-time through all of those pieces….
NBC debuts ‘second screen’ social TV app
While a couple networks have launched companion apps for individual TV shows, NBC has launched a “second screen” app for the network. The NBC Live iPad app (iTunes) integrates synchronized quizzes, fun facts, behind-the-scenes nuggets and conversations. It works on selected TV shows, and we took it for a spin with last night’s “Celebrity Apprentice.” [...]
NBC gets social for the Royal Wedding
NBC News is covering the Royal Wedding wall-to-wall, and there are several interesting hooks to social media, from Twitter and Facebook to an iPad-iPhone app. For starters, NBC plans to cover the big event on @royalwedding, a “hyperactive look at everything royal wedding,” says Ryan Osborn, NBC News’ social media director. “We’ll be posting links [...]
NBC Local debuts ‘The 20′ Twitter influencers
As promised last year, NBC Local Media stations are rolling out “The 20,” an initiative that taps the top Twitter influencers in each market to help curate local news and issues. “The 20″ has debuted in the form of Tumblrs in New York and Washington D.C., described as “a home for incisive commentary and coverage” [...]
Comcast deal means NBC loses management of Hulu
NBCU will have to relinquish its “management rights” at Hulu under the newly-approved joint venture announced by the FCC and the Department of Justice. The agreement took more than a year to reach. One of the issues to those who were concerned about the deal was that Comcast would have too much control over both [...]
NBC to premiere ‘The Cape’ on iPad app
Here’s a first. NBC is premiering the one-hour pilot episode of “The Cape” on an iPad app — and not NBC’s app, but on DC Comics’ free iPad app. “What better partner than DC Comics, whose audience is devoted to the comic book genre from which ‘The Cape,’ draws its inspiration,” said Adam Stotsky, President, [...]
Today Show experiments with augmented reality
If you happen to be at Rockefeller Plaza in New York, you may see people swinging their iPhones randomly in the air. No, they’re not crazy — they’re looking for virtual objects planted by the NBC Today Show. It’s all part of an experiment with GoldRun, an iPhone app that lets you track down and [...]
Tweet by NBC anchor named ‘most powerful’ of 2010
Soon after the Haiti earthquake, the US Air Force took over control of Haiti’s airport, which was in a state of disarray. A Doctors without Borders plane carrying medical supplies could not get clearance to land. When Today Show anchor Ann Curry saw a tweet from one of the charity’s organizers, she sent out this [...]
TBD, NBC and moving beyond TV on the web
Visitors to WJLA-TV’s website in Washington DC were greeted this August with a story that started with the line, “Reader warning: Do not get too comfortable on this website.” A short time later, WJLA.com redirected to TBD.com, an aggressive local startup news site launched by Allbritton, the owner of WJLA-TV. Its sister cable channel, Newschannel [...]
NBC Local to aggregate influential local Twitterers
NBC’s owned-and-operated station sites will soon integrate tweets from the “top 20 Twitterers” in each of its 10 markets. Called “The 20,” the top Twitterers will be invited to discuss hot topics trending in the city, and excerpts will be featured in on-air segments (both broadcast and cable) as well as new properties like The [...]
Today goes viral with ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’
I have to say, this is pretty amazing — one continuous steadicam shot of nearly the entire Today Show staff (wearing T-shirts with their job titles) dancing to “I’ve Got a Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas. It was part of “Today Goes Viral” week, designed in part to drive social media sharing of video [...]
