Hollywood sees a revolution coming and is alternately excited and scared by the possibilities. Once you have experienced the clarity and convenience of a video iPod, you know why.
Most studio and network chiefs are trying to sound calm in the face of the techno-assault. They trust that “content is king,” that we’ll always need their shows, and that new gadgets merely drive audiences back to “the mothership,” the conventional TV set.
Disney-ABC is relieved to note the Apple iTunes downloads for “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost” have not stolen viewers from the shows but rather increased viewership for both series on ABC.
But media bosses have more questions than answers about how the revolution will be televised. They are debating how programs will need to be conceived and produced differently for the new gizmos. Will bite-size clips – like David Letterman’s Top 10 or Conan O’Brien’s monologue – outpace full-length shows on portable, hand-held screens? Will expensive action scenes be less necessary in a tiny format? Will anyone besides commuter geeks watch full episodes of “Lost” on their laps? And will local weather and traffic reports be the next wave of cellphone content, as some claim?
“Video iPod is the game changer for the next 10 years,” according to Dick Wolf, creator of the “Law & Order” franchise.
Wolf expects video iPods to be as ubiquitous as the regular iPod. “It will free people up even more than video-on-demand since you can pull it out of your pocket. The minute you’re looking at the screen and put the earphones in, your eye adjusts.” Even tiny, he said, “it’s more than acceptable.”
According to the Jack Myers Media Business Report, Wolf told an invitation-only audience, “the whole business model (of television) is going up in smoke in the next five years.”
As a measure of how seismic the shift is, screenwriters now refer to themselves, only partly in jest, as “content providers.”
Howard Gordon, executive producer of Fox’s “24,” isn’t sure how he feels about that designation.
“That was an eye-opener when I went out to breakfast with a friend of mine who is this CFO at Disney. … I never heard myself referred to as a ‘content provider.’ And now that I am, it really is a challenge.” He has to think about product placements and downloads the way he used to think about a third act.
Members of the unions representing directors, writers and actors unions are buzzing about what the new technology will mean to them. “There’s a lot of rumblings at all the guilds right now,” Gordon told TV critics.
“When we did these ’24’ mobisodes (one-minute dramas for cellphones as offshoots of “24”), they were by definition really kind of amateurish because they were nonunion. We really had to avoid the union thing entirely, so Jack Bauer wasn’t in it, but some guy who didn’t even have a SAG card.” He called the results “cheesy.”
David Katz, who left CBS to become head of sports and entertainment at Yahoo Media Group, believes that new gadg-
etry cannot help but lead to new types of entertainment. In other words, build it and the content will come. Since joining Yahoo, he said, he finds the company often builds products without really knowing how they will be used.
“You put your content hat on and you see the Yahoo Messenger and 360 and Local and Avatars and Community (interactive online sites), and how you might be able to create a new content experience,” he said.
In this world, the medium is not only the message but, someday, the killer app.
Traditional storytelling and character development still will be critical, Katz said, “but you’re going to be able to append new things and engage your audience in a new way.”
The new gizmos are “somewhat” affecting the way CBS is developing shows, according to CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler. “One of the things we’re talking about right now is multi-platform development. … We’re coming up with sort of, I don’t know, companion promotional narratives.”
The idea is to get the audience interested in what she calls “ancillary” stories to complement a broadcast. In other words, sexy teasers custom- made for your cellphone or streamed to your computer might whet your appetite for the telenovelas CBS will introduce on TV this summer. They might be shorter, rely more on closeups and have less background clutter than material shot for the big screen.
Ultimately, Tassler said, “the goal is to bring that audience back around to that first run (on TV).”
In the future, Disney-ABC’s Albert Cheng believes, the concept of “network” will disappear and people will gather around specific shows, movies or brands. In the newly created position of executive vice president, digital media for Disney-ABC Television Group, he’s in charge of developing video-on-demand, broadband, web-based and mobile platforms, and finding new ways to make money in these areas. Disney’s “High School Musical,” for instance, is churning out extra MP3, video and other tidbits for teenybopper consumption.
Cyriac Roeding, head of CBS’s wireless media, said his division is working backward: “Instead of taking an existing show and turning it into a cellphone show, we create a cellphone show. We are in the course of developing a soap opera, which is from day-one designed to be on the cellphone as the main platform.”
Last year, Roeding said, half a million cellphone calls determined the plot outcome for CBS’s “Big Brother.” Same for the “Emmy Idol” singing contest featuring Donald Trump. “People actually spent 49 cents per call.”
CBS figured the next step would be to integrate an interactive component into a scripted show. They wrote a ringtone of a Coldplay song into “CSI: New York” in the fall and had characters talking about it within the story. As a result, fans paid $2.49 to download the ringtone, which they ordered via text message.
What next? Imagine downloading catchphrases from your favorite characters, for a price. Or ordering their wardrobe. Or interacting with a soap plot on your cellphone: “If you want a happy ending, push 3.” It’s already being discussed.
Scripting ringtones into a storyline may be cute. And the task of writing specifically for a cellphone is an intriguing challenge. But “24’s” Gordon observes that good writing is tough enough without gimmicks.
“It’s very hard to tell a story, still, from a beginning, middle and end. I mean, I love the proposition (of new tech),” Gordon said, “but compelling linear content is still going to be king.”
Using her own family as a guide, CBS’s Tassler has a pragmatic approach to the future. “My husband just learned how to e-mail, and yet my son has been communicating (via e-mail) on his cellphone for the past two years. So I don’t think anybody really knows,” Tassler said.
“The truth is, we don’t know where we’re headed. We know that we are going for the ride.”
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
