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July 2007 - Strategy Magazine
Fall TV preview

Couch potato uprising
Viewers are now active content providers for nets. And nets still want more

by Jesse Kohl
page 42

Can user-generated content do for TV what Wikipedia has done for Web 2.0? Are we entering a new age when the airwaves will be programmed by communities of viewers, all wired up for contribution and collaboration? Obviously, we're not there (yet?), but Canadian broadcasters are dipping their feet into new ways of using citizen-produced TV.

CTV hopped on board with the blockbuster-sized Spielberg/Burnett reality search for the next great filmmaker, On the Lot, which used an online UGC community hub to scout for contestants and showcase their content. CBC's summer lineup includes Exposure, which brings the same premise to Canadians and adds a viewer-voting strategy to package the best of UGC for a July 29 premiere.

News and specialty nets, however, are harnessing the user-gen trend for brand building.

CHUM's come a long way since the early days of Speakers Corner and the send-us-your-cardboard-cutouts on MuchMusic's RSVP show. Citytv more recently added citizen journalism to the mix and embraced the tools of UGC in its news-gathering operations at Citynews.ca. With over 10 million page views per month, the company's most successful online property opened the doors a little wider last summer with It's Your Story, a sponsored site that allows users to upload content, which could hit the air or get followed up by journalists. The reward for participating, outside of winning a camcorder, is getting things covered at the local level.

VP content business development Maria Hale says CHUM's UGC efforts moving forward will focus more on "contextualized submissions. It's not about trying to be the next YouTube, where you upload whatever you want. For us, it's really about staying on message and creating a community around a certain brand. We're going to be launching new approaches. Right now, viewers submit a news story on whatever, but what we're finding is that our audience needs a bit more specific direction."

On the youth side, MuchMusic fans created CD cases for Finger Eleven (reward: the band chose one for distribution), uploaded snippets of a Hedley video (reward: the winning entry chosen by the band ran on air), and did their best impressions of the Sunsilk "Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out" for a whole weekend of branded on-air fun.

MuchMusic.com's Show Me Yours UGC community - usable via web or mobile - has already let sponsors in on the contest opps. The brand's latest use of the platform let fans compete - via uploaded videos - for the chance to introduce a performer at the MuchMusic Video Awards, while CHUM's Star! Daily tied Herbal Essences to an upload-your-best-pose contest for a chance to stroll down the MMVA's red carpet in June.

MTV Canada has dabbled in UGC in conjunction with the U.S. shows that rank highest here. Fans of Cribs were invited to upload films of their humble abodes, which may one day end up spliced into the show's profiled celeb houses. The music net also ran a Halloween UGC contest called Fight Club, which lured viewers to make videos of themselves scaring friends - for a cash money prize. They became highlight opps on MTV Live. Scarred, which was just greenlit for a second 10-ep season, goes behind the scenes of UGC - giving an inside look at the people behind the gruesome scars in the extreme sport blooper-type videos that rack up millions of hits on sites like YouTube.

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