User Generated Television

Mint Digital, run by Andy Bell, organized the second edition of UGTV - a concept that I'm finding increasingly incongruous. User Generated Television, when held under the microscope suffers from a few obvious conceptual and practical cracks.

First, as of date, user video content implies a certain technology profile (access to broadband and a video camera/ video mobile phone), a time profile (enough time to shoot, edit and upload video), an age profile (probably a few years on either side of 20) and an economic profile (access to technology, broadband) which sort of narrows the audience. When I posed this question Richard Williams gave me examples of the BBC's work with Octagenarians, but that involved a bus to collect them, and was still about typing responses about the WWII from users. As an advertiser I would worry about the breadth of the audience I was reaching. Great for the right brands, but probably not the best option for everybody.

Second, Television, by design works at a large scale. Because of it's technology, capital intensity and overall structure, it only works for millions of people at a time. It simply doesn't work for a few hundreds. That's why Youtube works - not because of the half a dozen videos that get seen by the whole world, but because of the thousands of videos which individually get seen by a few people. For User Generated content to go on TV - it needs to be good enough for a million plus audiences. How many pieces of user-content merit that kind of audience. It seems a bit like forcing a square peg in a round hole. Think of going the other way - imagine trying to create mass-Internet content. Why would you do that?

Professional communities - especially the kind being wooed by the NYTVF - who are already working with video of course are ideally suited to this kind of venture. But they're not really creating consumer facing TV as much as creating an industry specific one. Industry communities could work quite well - you can imagine architects, designers, musicians, film-makers and advertisers all using video sharing.

At another level, very small communities - friends and family - with holday pictures and kids videos can work as well. Neither of these are really Television propositions.

Current TV is a model worth watching as there is potentially a niche available for specifically news and current events content as a counterpoint to mediated content provided by mainstream news TV brands. I'm not sure how many businesses this space can accomodate though.

Having said all of that, the event was instructive and Mint Digital will probably go on to bigger and better things.