Broadcast and Web 2.0: from tv program to brand

During the iMMovator Crossmedia Café Wessel de Valk (see photograph below), a veteran in new media, presented a case study of how a consumer program changed over a period of 5 years. In 2002 Kassa! (Cash!), a Dutch language consumer program of the VARA, a public broadcast station, was a classic program. It was broadcasted 42 weeks, every week except for summertime; attracted 1,5 million viewers and had a contact frequency of 64 million times. Once a program had been broadcasted and repeated once, it went into the broadcast archive.

Now in 2007 the contact frequency has been extended to 232 million times. Over the years the program has been built out to a brand, crossing over from television to other media. The ingredients are: Kassa on TV; Consumer TV; Q&A; The golden hint; The experts,; Forums; News; News quiz; Product polls; polls; Themes; Tests; Newsletter; Links; Contact. The program is broadcasted on analogue and digital television and the program has a hybrid form of an analogue broadcast, which is continued on internet and later on broadcasted as the prolongation. The program is also part of a consumer channel broadcasted on a digital channel. Also radio has now a daily consumer show. Besides the internet prolongation of the television program, the program can be retrieved for a month. There is also a weekly newsletter, announcing the items of the upcoming broadcast, but also comments on the past broadcast. And there is still Teletext, text television, and the RSS feeds. And now at last a print magazine will be published. And this might not be the end of the media tail, as narrowcasting has not been probed yet.

This net of programs is delivering its fruits. The site has daily 40.000 unique visitors; monthly 1,2 million visitors. The newsletter is received by 130.000 subscribers. And this tool has created its own community of faithful subscribers. No less than 23.000 consumer questions are launched in this forum. There is now a database with 200.000 answers, with only 55 questions which could not be answered. When a subscriber launches a question on the forum, he/she will have reactions within an hour. The community has also organised itself by subjects.

Consumer matters have attracted a faithful flock of followers, who check many of the various programs and use the newsletter and forum tools frequently. In five years the television program Kassa has been built out to a crossmedia brand and community. The crossmedia format is now being applied at the section humour. The broadcast station is famous for its humour programs on television and radio. In order to use the crossmedia format 100 television and radio programs have been chunked into 2.000 fragments and stored into a database. Selections from the database can be used in order to start up a program on the digital television channel as well as internet video and radio programs and, yes, soon there will be a printed magazine. Besides this expansion of humour programs, the community of humour and cabaret lovers is being strengthened. The newsletter is the cement between the newsletter subscribers and forum participants.

Television and radio broadcasting is changing dramatically. Did all the attention of viewers turn around the particular television or radio broadcasts on a particular time or evening, now these programs are usually the appetiser followed by an extension or cross-over to other media, which can be viewed at any time. The interesting part is that this is not only a technical and brand building movement, but it has also a reciprocal movement as it also solicits community action.

Blog Posting Number: 911

Tags: broadcast, web 2.0, crossmedia

Microsoft under x-fire

Microsoft finally bowed last Saturday, admitting last Saturday that something could be wrong with the CD-player of the Xbox-360. In the Netherlands after more than 1000 complaints, the television consumer program Kassa (Cash!) took Microsoft on to test and demonstrated that Xbox-360 discs could be damaged.

It had been singing around already for sometime in the gamers’ quarters. But the rumour was every time stemmed by Microsoft by repeating the message to put the Xbox-360 on a stable surface. But after a thorough test shown on TV (see the Dutch language broadcast), it was clear that Microsoft could not maintain that it was only a matter of putting the Xbox-360 in a stable position. During the program the CD player was blamed for the scratches as the lens lacks padding.

The conclusion of the consumer broadcast was difficult to swallow for Microsoft. Having blamed the users themselves for incorrect usage in a broadcast of February 24th, Microsoft now declared that scratches can surface on the discs due to regular usage. Microsoft did not want to react to the findings of the broadcast in particular as it was not part of the test. The company said to have no indication that the problem is a large scale one. People with the problem should contact the company. The player will be inspected and if needed repaired. The company will also inform the users how they can get replacements for the discs.

Looking at Microsoft handling this problem, one can only conclude that Microsoft is in a big fight with Nintendo and does not want to admit that there is a structural problem. Besides they have not taken the people that complained seriously. What should they have done?

Admitting that there was a problem could have been done when the first complaints were heard. At that time they could have seriously supported the complainants by repair and replacement. Microsoft did not do so. Depending on the number of complaints worldwide they could have started a call back of the Xbox-360, just like car companies do, when a serious safety problem occurs.

One can ask of course whether scratches on a disc are a serious safety problem. Of course they are, for gamers can no longer play their favourite game, when scratches appear on their disc. The gamers will get annoyed and will no longer be happy. And then they became a danger in the social traffic.

It still beats me that a company like Microsoft just plays down a consumer problem like this and does not pamper their gamers. They are the audience for the next generation Xbox. Once they get disappointed and switch to Nintendo, Microsoft looses a potential buyer for future game consoles.

Microsoft avoided having to undergo an x-fire during the broadcast. They did not appear, stood back and issues a written statement. This is not exactly the way of handling involved gamers, IMHO.

Blog Posting Number: 726

Tags: games