This week marked the launch of the very first online-based reality TV show. ‘If I Can Dream‘ is a new series from American Idol creator Simon Fuller that takes five Hollywood hopefuls (all quite attractive, obviously) and places them in a beautiful house where they are taped 24-7 as they try to live their dreams. Think ‘American Idol’ meets ‘Big Brother’. This article from Fast Company describes the vibe pretty well:
“The evocative pipes of Elvis, lingering shots of five impossibly pulchritudinous young ‘uns in underwear wafting around an impossibly beautiful house. A cross between Idol and Big Brother, the show–the first to be streamed via the Internet on Hulu– follows a wannabe model, three actors and a musician as they try to make it big in the town of Tinsel. The social media presence is overwhelming. You can tweet, FB, MySpace, blog and sms the quintet and, if one of them should make it big, vote to choose their replacement.”
What’s interesting about this show is that, at the moment, it is entirely digital. In addition to episodes airing on Hulu, it has a highly interactive web site that allows you to watch the house live, 24-7, from the point of view of over 50 cameras. You can track the individual cast members and dynamically follow them as they move throughout the house, focus on a single room, or just watch the producer’s selection of the most interesting things happening at the moment.
So what does it mean?
The world’s becoming digital
Five years ago, or even one year ago, there’s no question that this show would have been launched in partnership with a major television network. But as all forms of entertainment become increasingly digital, it makes more sense to publish the show online. Producer Michael Herwick breaks it down:
“[Young people] digest the internet, they’re socially interactive, and they’re shooting their own videos on YouTube and getting discovered. We’re just saying that’s where it’s at right now, and we’re creating a project around that.”
This approach seems to resonate with the target demographic. A few commenters on a Perez Hilton post discussing the show say:
“I always watch American Idol on line.. These days people don’t watch TV.. Unless there’s no internet..” -evancalo
“I fucking LOVE HULU! Down with paying for cable!” -holyfuck
Celebrity requires interaction
“Someone tweet me and tell me what I should do” – Giglianne, the aspiring model.
I am not a fan of reality shows, but because of my husband’s involvement, I’ve been tuning into the site periodically. And the moment that hooked me was when, on the day the cast moved in, they all sat around a television that was showing live Twitter comments and questions directed at them. The cast immediately began to interact with the fans – making shout-outs, answering questions, and just chatting. This level of interactivity allows for fans to be more than just a passive audience, and that decision was made by design:
“I am determined to continue challenging convention and pushing the boundaries of mainstream entertainment. The next frontier is the video world of authentic real-time interaction. ‘If I Can Dream’ experiments with technology to provide for the first time a complete open-door opportunity that allows the viewer to experience reality in a way never before attempted.” – Simon Fuller
Modern day celebrities are increasingly interacting with their fans – just look at all the celebs on Twitter. It’s interesting to think that, in years to come, this type of interaction and a sense of responsibility towards fans might become standard.
Always-on entertainment
Another interesting aspect of the show is that it’s always on. The 30-minute Hulu program is really only a small piece of the overall effort. Producer Michael Herwick describes Fuller’s vision:
“I think Simon’s vision was to give people complete access into what it really takes to try to make it in Hollywood. He said that nobody’s ever shown that world in a legitimate sort of way, and he wanted to give complete access to it. I also think that he really loved the idea of video communication and that the whole world is so interconnected, everyone’s video chatting. It just felt like a natural fit for modern technology.”
In advertising, we talk a lot about how digital has shifted from initiative based efforts to always-on platforms. It’s interesting to think that this shift might be happening in entertainment as well.
What does it all mean?
When I was watching the site on Tuesday evening, I started to get a strange feeling. The voyeurism of watching the cast in the house- live, unfiltered- combined with their interactions with viewers on Twitter felt slightly uncomfortable (and very unfamiliar), but it was also extremely compelling. I couldn’t turn it off. It felt completely and utterly new. To throw some marketing speak into the mix, it felt like I was watching a paradigm shifting. And that’s not a feeling that I get often.
We know that digital technology has changed the ways in which we connect with one another. We know that it changes our behaviors. Now we’re seeing how it can change our very definition of, and expectations from, entertainment.
Full disclosure: My husband, a partner at Poke, led all the digital for this project. So I’ve been hearing about the show for over a year (and ate a lot of dinners alone while he worked late on it!). However, any opinions expressed here are, as always, my own.
