Web sites are scoring big hits for tv broadcasters and producers and becoming as popular among audiences as the shows they promote. But network and show Webmasters are quickly learning that creative content and audience interactivity are the key to keep viewers tuned in to the cyberworld.

Network Web sites all contain information mainstays – program listings, show summaries and directories, broadcast schedules, contact names, e-mail addresses and background information. The new challenge for broadcasters is to find more creative, interactive uses for their Web sites that generate communication with audiences and enhance program content.

Web site message boards and audience feedback pages are the most common way broadcasters and producers connect with their wired audiences. On these pages, viewers are invited to post questions, concerns and comments.

Cyberfeedback

Jordan Schwartz, supervising producer of bbs’s Camilla Scott, finds feedback via the show’s site particularly valuable. ‘It is an almost instant response to what they liked or didn’t like about today’s show,’ he says. ‘And the interesting thing about the Web site is that people are more brutally honest than on the phone. It is very informed opinion, not just ranting – `I hate this, you guys are awful!’ – but rather constructive criticism that offers solutions. And we listen because that’s our viewer, our target audience is 18 to 34, and they are online.’

Some broadcasters are finding out via cyberfeedback that they do not know their target audiences as well as they think they do. The Bravo! audience is described as 35 and older, yet the tremendous popularity of Bravo!’s site has shown communications director David Ellis that a younger, techno-savvy audience is also watching. ‘It has also shown us that in terms of taste our viewers are all over the map,’ says Ellis.

Schwartz has also learned unexpected things about Camilla Scott’s target online 18-34 audience. ‘There are a lot of requests via the Web for makeover stories, and that surprised me, I didn’t think that would interest Internet users.’

The Internet is also becoming a vehicle to draw in new audiences. Having a home page attracts Web surfers to check out programs and networks they are otherwise unfamiliar with.

Newsworld Online

With the July 3 launch of CBC Newsworld Online, Janice Ward, manager of programming and scheduling at CBC Newsworld, hopes to attract viewers who are not its typical over-40 viewing audience.

‘Hopefully, as a result of Web site interest, the younger Internet user will watch more tv news,’ explains Ward. ‘Something will catch their eye and entice them to watch Newsworld.’

With the new online news service, Newsworld is targeting business people, who can check in to the top news stories while working at their desk, and Canadians traveling and working outside the country who want to stay up to date on news from home.

Viewers shaping content

Broadcasters say audience feedback via the Web site has become an important information source for scheduling decisions.

The Discovery Channel message board has been inundated with requests for Discovery Connections to run for an hour instead of a half-hour, and communications resource co-ordinator Kim Silk-Copeland says the producers are looking into it. A strong request for more John Acorn shows led to a schedule rearrangement so two of his programs could run back-to-back.

When Bravo! aired Heavy Metal, an animated special on rock ‘n’ roll, a lively debate on suitable material for the specialty channel was sparked on the Web site, the message board heating up with exchanges between viewers who commended the bravery of the arts channel and those who considered the program too vulgar for broadcast.

‘We loved it,’ exclaims Ellis. ‘It helps us get an objective picture of what our viewers think of us and our programming. It helps us consider options.’

Broadcasters are also realizing that Web sites can be a means to generate program content.

The Camilla Scott home page is being used to solicit potential guests. A topics board lists upcoming show themes and people can post a message if they feel they would make an ideal guest. Viewers can also leave their own story ideas. Many requests were posted via the Web site for stories on people meeting their Internet pen pals for the first time, so the topic was listed in the Web site. Some of the guests were found via the Camilla home page, and the show turned out to be one of the most popular of the season.

The recently launched Benmergui page on the Newsworld Web site is following a similar route, with a suggestion board where viewers can list topics for the live talk show.

Kids at the Master Controls

Younger viewers have the opportunity to shape the content of bbs’s Master Control via the Web. Jenn, the show host, sends the character Whatever Boy on adventures the viewers choose by writing or sending messages via the Web site.

As well, kids make online requests for what animals they would like to see in the wild animal film segment. If Jenn fails to mention something they know about the animal of the day, viewers e-mail messages, which Jenn always tries to read on-air.

‘The Web site gives you another vehicle to serve your audience,’ says Sia Petropolous, creator and producer of Master Control. ‘The entire mandate of the show is that it exists for the viewers. The show belongs to them, so if they say they want something, then they are going to get it.’

Discovery Channel is also giving cybersurfers the chance to direct the content of their programs. For the Cyberwars series, five pilots were aired and viewers chose via the Internet which show they wanted the new series based upon. Ironically, the series was canceled.

‘The pilot was more interesting than the series and the message boards were filled with complaints about the show,’ sayss Silk-Copeland. ‘They voted it in so we gave it to them, they didn’t like it so we took it away.’

A request for more space programs from viewers clicking on the @.discovery.ca page was met with increased coverage of the space program and more interviews with astronauts. Messages asking for more human behavior stories led to the addition of a ‘Human Behavior’ columnist.

Cyberchats

Live online chats are also becoming increasingly prevalent among broadcasters. Intimate and Interactive specials are common features on Citytv, where live musical performances are mixed with question periods via the Internet. MuchMusic is also looking at having vj’s offering two videos to its online audience and having a live chat group vote on which video they will watch next.

‘The challenge in Internet programming,’ says City Interactive gm Josh Raphaelson, ‘is to do more than point a camera at a computer screen.’

@.discovery.ca has also gone the live-chat route, with a live you-asked-for-it question show where viewers call or e-mail in questions on any topic within the show’s scope.

‘The response was fantastic,’ says Silk-Copeland, ‘I was getting in 10 and 12 e-mail messages a minute and ended up with over 300 within the hour.’ Questions that did not get answered during the show will be funneled into the show content of the upcoming season.

Debates and discussions generated in cyberspace are also informing the content of news programs. When Newsworld featured a five-part special on the Canadian constitution, viewers were encouraged to discuss their vision of Canada over the Net.

‘The discussions were articulate and analytical and impassioned,’ says Jeannette Kopak, head of program information at cbc. ‘Comments from the online debate were discussed during the on-air program and generated further discussion. It really enhanced the program. The Web discussions continued long after the series, so the program expanded beyond its hour.’

Political coverage

Broadcasters are also looking to incorporate interactivity into election and political event coverage. During the provincial election, City held an online debate between six political candidates and a wired audience. The interactive component became news itself, with Mark Daley covering the online debate for CityPulse.

Viewers were also asked to cast their vote in a Web site election poll. ‘It gave CityPulse story material because we had our poll to compare to other polls,’ explains Raphaelson. ‘That’s news for our newscast. The e-mail discussions with the candidates was also potential material.’

Newsworld also has similar plans for its new Web site. On budget days, Ward hopes to offer audiences a page where they can design their own budget, and she plans to use this material to generate discussion during the televised event coverage.

‘Newsworld programs so many live specials that there are great opportunities to develop live interactive programs,’ says Ward.

Newsworld experimented with interactive supplements to live event coverage during the last b.c. election. Teaming up with Southam, the Web site included real-audio intercasts from CBC Radio, background information, and chat sessions between voters, politicians and political reporters.

Sports score on Net

Coverage of sporting events is another hot spot on the Web, and broadcasters are approaching sports with lots of zeal and creativity.

Last basketball season, CityPulse Sports experimented with a live Internet broadcast of a Raptors game. Viewers watching the game on City at home could click on the page and ask questions about plays, referee calls and up-to-the-minute scores. Responses were posted immediately by the City Interactive department, which set up computers beside the play-by-play commentators.

To enhance ctv coverage of the 1996 World Figure Skating Championships, ctv and iStar created a Web site, The Rink, that offered viewers realtime scores by interfacing with the venue scoring system.

Immediacy is the key draw of this ‘cybercasting,’ says John McLarty, producer at CTV Sports. ‘People posted messages like, `I feel like I am right there at the event.’ When Elvis Stojko missed his short program and it was evident he wasn’t going to get gold, we were able to get that on the Net right as it happened.’

The success of The Rink was also due to the fact that the site was modified over the five-day event to reflect the needs of its audience. After complaints that the judge scoring section did not include how judges marked each part of the routine, the charts were modified, and when large numbers asked for explanations of scores, a comments section was added.

‘ `Finally, someone is listening to me’ was the response,’ says McLarty. ‘They asked if we could do something about a problem and we fixed it right away. People wanted more specifics so we ended up catering more to the new figure skating fan whereas we started out catering to the hard-core fan.’

In-depth coverage also made the site a hit. ‘Fans were offered so many more things than the tv broadcast had time to do,’ says McLarty. The Web site also included a ‘You Be The Judge’ page, where online users could score routines alongside the judges and compare marks.’ CTV Sports is planning a similar site for its coverage of the Bell Canadian Open golf tournament.

New converts

Broadcasters who have been more hesitant to take the plunge into cyberspace are gearing up to get on board. ytv has a Web site in development and hopes to launch it this winter. The specialty channel is realizing that kids are becoming increasingly techno-savvy.

‘Kids are watching less tv and spending more time on computers and cd-roms,’ says Susan Ross, vp marketing at ytv. ‘So we as coproducers and deliverers of kid-con have to stay relevant to them.’

wtn received the go-ahead from its board of directors at the end of June and will enter the world of cyberactivity around January 1997. The specialty women’s net found from Nielsen studies that approximately 34% of Internet users in Canada are women and hopes to reach them, as well as new audiences, via the Web.

CanWest International has a Web site study underway, and Ken Johnson, vp of marketing and sales at Global tv, says the network recognizes Web sites can be an important tool in program decision-making.

‘Feedback on programs, our news coverage, the responses we will get to online promotions, will indicate what our audience is watching and doing and feeling about our programs,’ he says. ‘The more information you have about your viewer, the better decisions you make.’

Broadcasters agree that Web sites are becoming an increasingly important component of their programming and audience-relations strategies. ‘The Web site is a way to give the viewers more in terms of content, to understand what they want, and to entertain them at a time that’s convenient for them,’ says Petropolous.

Kopak agrees. ‘Watching tv is passive and you have to wait for something to happen, but Web sites give audiences some say. The audience is contributing to the actual creation of the program.’

And high audience numbers and show popularity are being attributed in part to the advantages Web sites offer. Silk-Copeland says if she is late updating any information on the Discovery site, viewers post messages wanting to know where the information is.

‘The viewers drive the Web site and it funnels down into Discovery Channel programming,’ says Silk-Copeland. ‘We are one of the most successful specialty channels, and the reason is because we are listening to what our viewers are saying.’