Injecting Internet DNA into TV

Cable World, April 10, 2000 by Karen Brown

When Internet pages related to television programming began popping up a few years ago, they stood on the other side of an electronic fence, little more than giant Web billboards advertising a different medium.

Like everything else on the Web, it didn't take long for that to change. The fence is gone, and the television animal today is being genetically infused with Internet DNA. More and more network execs won't look at a new TV program unless it has a Web play. On the flip side, Internet content is even spawning television programming spinoffs.

Even a network that relies on golden oldie movies is getting wise to the importance of Internet content. American Movie Classics views its Web product as a way to provide greater depth to network programming, according to Mark Juris, AMC's SVP-programming, packaging and production.

"We feel our Web content is as important now as our on-air component," Juris said. "We really do appreciate that now -- don't start a project now without asking if it has an online component."

The work started in 1999 when AMC created an online component for its annual Halloween Monster Fest, including downloadable film clips of original movies from director Roger Corman. The Internet push is making the line between television and cyberspace pretty hazy.

"We're not thinking about one medium," Juris said. "We're looking for a parallel that can go on the Website. That is a fundamental shift for us and everyone."

"Five years from now it's going to be a whole new paradigm for creating content," he added.

Old flames

Meanwhile, Internet content programmers at AMC sibling Romance Classics are working to help viewers fall in love. Last year's online wedding ceremony, where one could marry anyone in cyberspace, drew 3 million visitors in two hours.

Though still in its infancy, the Internet side of Romance Classics is expanding, according to Valerie Green, VP-marketing/ network development. The travel show Romancing America includes Web site links that allow viewers to make travel reservations, click on tips and see material not included in the broadcast.

"We drive it with the programming to the Web to enhance their experience with content on shows, with actual viewer experiences, with trip bookings or interacting with other viewers," she said.

A project that has generated tremendous response for Romance is the online Lost Loves Directory, where people can post messages seeking those they have lost touch with, be they old flames, friends or family.

"We actually see that as a source of programming with people who can re-connect with a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a friend or someone they have lost contact with," she said. "Hopefully that can incubate some television content."

A new show in the works this spring and summer is a cinema verite profile focusing on exotic travel for women. Tentatively dubbed Journey Women, the show will include related content on the Romance Web site. There, women can post their ideas for adventures, which could lead to actual programs.

"It's kind of taking Romancing America a step further and taking it to single women," Green said.

Youth vote

At youth-oriented MTV, which caught the Internet craze early on, the last 15 to 16 months "have been an eye-opener for us," according to Rick Holzman, VP-programming/ promotion for MTV Interactive. "The key thing is MTV as a brand that transcends platform."

With a younger demographic already keyed into the Internet, MTV's online component is crucial to the network's survival, and "for MTV to survive it must keep reinventing itself."

"For our audience, the index of them going online is so much higher than other networks, so if we don't find a way to reach them, they will go elsewhere," he said.

In response, MTV is reinventing how it approaches program development by using the Internet as an incubator.

"One of the major changes I made in our group is to place extremely senior members in this medium as shadow counterparts of our television production department," Holzman said. "So I now have people reporting to the production department in L.A., and that injects Internet DNA into the TV gene pool."

Although many television producers once eyed the Internet warily, that's no longer the case, Holzman said. Placing Internet content developers directly under the television development unit was an idea that came from the TV side, he said.

"We should think about all content from day one," Holzman said.

With its emphasis on technology topics, ZDTV doesn't have to reach far to combine television and Internet. But Greg Drebin, VP-programming/ production for the network, says the processes are still "a two-headed beast."

"We still need TV to be good TV and we still need the Web to be good Web, but the win is when we make them work together," he said. "Our real win -- and where we think there is a sweet spot -- is when we make a Web product better with a TV product and vice versa."

Television content influenced by its Web counterpart is among the more important trends in the Internet content world, according to Anya Sacharow, an analyst for Internet think tank Jupiter Communications Inc.