My Top 10 TV Programmes of 2011

Somewhat belatedly, here's a list of the ten programmes which most tickled my televisual fancy last year. To be included, programmes must have been broadcast in the UK within the calendar year (hence no Sherlock). Do let me know in the comments what I should have been watching...

#1 The Killing - the most gripping 30 hours of 2011



#2 Rev. - matches, if not surpasses, the genius of the first series



#3 Frozen Planet - can I pay my license fee again, please?



#4 Holy Flying Circus - brilliantly Pythonesque and laugh out loud funny



#5 Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die - the toughest of watches but a documentary of real import



#6 All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - characteristically brain melting fare from the inimitable Mr Curtis



#7 Wonders of the Universe - Professor Cox does it again, this time on an intergalactic scale



#8 Our War - bold, moving, terrifying



#9 Pan Am - partially alleviating my Mad Men withdrawal symptoms



#10 Masterchef: The Professionals - format TV at it's very best



Related posts:
My Top 10 TV Programmes of 2010

My Top 10 TV Programmes of 2010

'Tis the season to make lists (yay!) Kicking off this year's run-downs is my top ten TV shows from the past 12 months. To be eligible, programmes must have have been broadcast in the UK within the calendar year (hence no 30 Rock or Breaking Bad). Feel free to let me know what I should have been watching / rating via the comments link below.

#1 Mad Men - television to luxuriate in



#2 Wonders of the Solar System - genuinely awe-inspiring



#3 Rev - note perfect first run comedy



#4 This is England '86 - they do make them like this anymore



#5 The Big Silence - bold and affecting



#6 Peep Show - six more episodes of comedy gold



#7 When Harvey Met Bob - captivating 90 minute drama



#8 The Trip - indulgent yet delightful



#9 Sherlock - deftly written and brilliantly performed



#10 Glee - the dictionary definition of guilty pleasure



The next ten (in alphabetical order): The Apprentice, Being Human, Doctor Who, The Inbetweeners, James May's Toy Stories, Miranda, Newswipe, Outnumbered, Wallander, Who Do You Think You Are?

Seven Days - a study of sudden celebrity in slo-mo

Finally managed to catch up with Channel 4's new reality TV show, Seven Days, which I'd thought I'd missed (having wrongly inferred from the title that it was stripped across a single week...)

Apart from finding it more engaging than I'd expected, what really struck me whilst watching it was how the nature of the format means it very quickly becomes less a study of regular people and their daily interactions and more a real-time examination of the impact of suddenly becoming a public figure / minor celebrity.

While contestants on other reality formats like Big Brother are well aware that simply taking part in the show will have turned them into overnight celebrities, they are usually shielded from the consequences of that new status (aside from a few overheard boos on eviction night) until they emerge from the experience (whereupon it no doubt hits them like a tidal wave, as they wade their way through the tabloid backlog).

Seven Days is different in exposing the participants to their developing public profile in real-time and letting them choose whether to let that feedback loop moderate their behaviour or not. What's more, it's a cocktail not just of the usual tabloid fare, but also of comments from Joe Public via the moderated ChatNav service and the unmoderated wilds of Twitter.

We're only three weeks in but it's already interesting to see the different participants (I like the fact C4 has hosted their profiles in a /characters directory - hopefully a knowing nod to the inherent artifice of TV portrayals...) respond very differently to the feedback they're receiving. Whilst Susanne appears to be deriving a new found confidence from her feedback (to finally challenge her son to move out), Samantha's feedback has put her in a tail spin about whether she cares what people think of her or not.

Whereas Big Brother was always rich with the reality TV equivalent of dramatic irony, as the participants carried on oblivious both to the public reaction to their actions and to many of the on-camera actions of their housemates, Seven Days affords the participants equal access to the public's perceptions and the broadcast behaviour of the show's other participants (so Hannah will see/hear Ben describe her as a "bronze medal"...)

It's almost like the mirror image of The Truman Show, where complete obliviousness has been switched out for maximum awareness of their daily lives as national spectacle.

As Matt Locke (Acting Head of Crossplatform at Channel 4) acknowledges, the formula's probably not 100% right yet, but it's certainly one of the most ambitious attempts to date to try and harness the differing (and to my mind complimentary) strengths of broadcast and IP to create a genuine feedback loop, with many thousands of viewers also acting as contributors/influencers.

Whilst there's already speculation that the show may not have delivered large enough audiences to secure its future, I'd be intrigued to see how this dynamic evolves in the longer term as the participants' lives become increasingly affected by their new found fame.

BBC Apprentice clips widget

Suffering Apprentice withdrawal symptoms after last Sunday's final? Here's a bundle of best bits (including James' car-crash interview - "In a nutshell, I put a leash on people who spunk money up the wall..." and "I can bring ignorance to the table") in an embeddable widgety package. No link back to bbc.co.uk unfortunately, so I'll have to provide one myself: Lots more good stuff on The Apprentice website and keep an eye out for more BBC widgets.

Catching up / BBC short-form video nuggets

Just back from a week's media-free* holiday (*excepting the Saturday Guardian, Gavin & Stacey and Season 5 of The Wire) and spent much of yesterday catching up with inbox, feed reader and iPlayer. On the assumption that you're probably not that interested in the highlights of my inbox, below are a few tasty nuggets from my TV/video viewing; Britain From Above, Maestro, Kermode Uncut and the Olympics TV trail - all great examples of short-form video, made sharable thanks to the BBC's rather splendid Embedded Media Player (EMP), the unsung hero of the iPlayer story. More great short-form video on the BBC YouTube channel and each of the above sites (Britain From Above is especially worth a visit - it took me ages to decide which clip to share there are so many gems). Right, back to work...

Facespook & Liberty News

The above screengrab and below video embed are both from Facespook; a neat little viral campaign to promote Spooks Code 9, which premieres on BBC THREE this Sunday. It uses technology from Oddcast to enable users to upload a mug shot of themselves which is then rendered onto the protagonist in the video; a neat fulfillment of a prediction I made last September having seen the Dexter icetruck.tv campaign and the Facebook Bob Dylan app:

"Whilst neither implementation is perfect (both suffer from problems with word wrapping), they're both impressive and an interesting indicator of a likely future direction for promotional videos, which will no doubt soon incorporate user-submitted photos and videos, as well as text, to further personalise the marketing message"

Also worth checking out is Six to Start's accompanying alternate reality experience, Liberty News and Adrian Lobb's Guardian blog post which asks whether the Spooks Code 9 website is better than the show and, more significantly, whether the future of television drama is actually on the web. I, unfortunately, won't be able to pass judgement as I'm off on holiday in about 9 hours to a land where the iPlayer doesn't stream. See you in a week.

Report

Why Dr. Horrible is on-demand event TV and Joss Whedon is the new Radiohead

There are a numerous reasons why Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is noteworthy; here are ten of them:

1.) It's a 40-minute, 3-part musical superhero comedy produced specifically for the internet (no really)
2.) It's a Joss Whedon production (he of Buffy/Angel/Firefly fame), starring Doogie Howser, M.D.
3.) It was written during the WGA writers' strike to circumvent, in the words of Mr. Whedon, "the Forest King system"
4.) It was reportedly made in under a week for a low six figure sum
5.) It's being distributed for free, with a view to making money on iTunes downloads, merchandise and a subsequent DVD release (hence the Radiohead comparison)
6.) It's available internationally via Hulu (which is normally US only)
7.) But only for a few days (Act I went up on Tuesday, Act II on Thursday and Act III on Saturday; all three come down today) making it a rare example of 'on-demand event TV'
8.) The official site crashed under the demand, peaking at a reported 200,000 hits per hour
9.) It's currently occupying spots 1, 2 and 3 in the iTunes TV Shows chart
10.) A Google search for "dr. horrible" already returns 361,000 results

If you haven't checked it out yet, then you'll have to get your skates on as the video comes down in a few hours. Here's a trailer:


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

TV character blogs

Interesting discussion at work the other day about fictional TV characters blogging which prompted me to do a quick trawl of the web for existing TV character blogs, the results of which are below, ordered by launch date. Whilst UK broadcasters are only just starting to dip their toe in this particular pool, a couple of the US networks have really embraced the concept. NBC was first out the gate in February 2005 with Nigel Blog but it's ABC which has been the most prolific to date, launching ten character blogs since October 2005.

So, the $64,000 question: do they work? Well, that depends on your success criteria. For the commercial TV networks, the bottom line is ad revenue and that means getting eyeballs to your blogs (or their RSS feeds) either to generate direct revenue from online ad sales or to increase engagement with the associated show and shore up its on-air audience. Hard numbers for these blogs aren't easy to come by as most of them are hosted on sub-directories of their parent network's site (of which more later). For those with their own domains, monthly uniques range from the low thousands to a peak of 25,000 for Robin's Daily Dose (see below chart from Compete).



As to whether these blogs pass muster on editorial merit, opinion seems very much divided. Steve Rubel describes character blogs as "a complete waste of time because a character is not and never will be human", although his comments seem mainly directed at marketeers, prompting a intelligent response from Rok Hrastnik on the marketingstudies.net blog, arguing that blogs are now reaching a more mainstream audience who don't care about "the rules" as defined by the early blogging adopters and just want to be entertained.

Assuming that your persuaded that there's either financial or brand building merit in creating a TV character blog, what are the other decisions you need to make before launching your blog? Here's a quick run down:

1.) Which character to choose

The most common approach is to pick a relatively minor character who is able to proffer observations on the key players without threatening the main thrust of the narrative (e.g. Joe the barman in Grey's Anatomy). Probably the most notable exception to this is Hiro from Heroes who has emerged from a large ensemble cast as one of the most popular characters in the series. Another thing to bear in mind is how plausible is it that this character would keep a blog? Whilst blogging is undoubtedly becoming a more mainstream pursuit, there are still some characters who feel a more logical fit for the medium.

2.) Who's going to write it

Pretty fundamental this one, the most obvious choice being the writers of the show's broadcast scripts who are used to writing dialogue for the chosen character. Potential pitfalls include a lack of enthusiasm/engagement from the writers who are used to writing teleplays for sizeable primetime audiences; agreeing a remuneration rate agreeable to all parties (lack of precedent) and how to handle comments (see point 4). Alternatives include a writer more comfortable with blogging but unconnected with the on-air writing process; the actor who plays the character on-screen (Judah Friendlander writes Frank Talk, Masi Oka contributes to Hiro's Blog and Rainn Wilson regularly scribes for Schrute-Space); or, if you really want to go out on a limb, a bunch of superfans (not sure anyone's gone down this route yet, although I think it would be fascinating to try).

3.) Frequency of posting

The frequency of posting differs wildly on the blogs surveyed below, ranging from the regular-as-clockwork weekly posters to the extremely sporadic. The issue here is managing users expectations and encouraging repeat visits (especially important when that most basic of blog features, the RSS feed, has been omitted). A related question is whether to continue blogging whilst the show is off air, increasing costs but potentially maintaining audience engagement between seasons. The recent WGA writers' strike forced many of the below blogs to cease updates for the duration, resulting in some creative explanations for the bloggers' absence: "Joe and I have been on a hunger strike for several weeks so I haven’t had the strength to blog" (from Grey's Anatomy's The Nurse's Station).

4.) Whether to enable comments

Often cited as one of the fundamental ingredients of what makes a blog a blog (along with reverse chronological entries, permalinks and subscribeable feeds), comments present an interesting dilemma for the authors of character blogs. On the one hand, you have comments which threaten to shatter the carefully constructed narrative universe by alluding to its artifice. On the other, you have comments which seek to engage directly with the character. Dealing with either is fraught with difficulties (do you pay the author to respond to comments in character?) which is why so many character blogs either ignore comments or switch them off altogether.

5.) Where to host the blog

There appear to be three main options when it comes to deciding where to host your TV character blog. One is as part of your TV network site which has the advantage of piggy-backing on existing infrastructure and Googlejuice but demands a greater suspension of disbelief amongst users as the artifice of the blog is made all the more apparent by the surrounding network livery. Another option is a dedicated domain name (e.g. http://www.jessandtess.com/) which can help to maintain the artifice that this is a genuine blog and feels pretty essential if you are going to show the URL as part of the on-screen drama (see point 6). That said, most of the below sites with a dedicated domain name have heavy network branding which arguably counters the main benefit of an off-portal URL. A third option is to use a third-party intermediary such as MySpace, which worked pretty well for FX with The Carver (http://www.myspace.com/thecarver) - 68,000 friends and counting.

6.) Whether to reference the blog in the on-screen drama

Not easy to do in a way that doesn't feel forced, weaving a TV character's blog into the on-screen narrative is another interesting call. Finding a way of rewarding users who are reading the blog with extra insights, without penalising those who aren't is a difficult balance, although somewhat easier in the wake of shows like Lost and Heroes which achieved this masterfully (see earlier post on Why Heroes raises the bar for multiplatform media).

Anyway, enough rambling, here's my round-up of existing TV character blogs. Let me know in the comments or on your own blog if you've come across any others or have a strong opinion about the merits (or otherwise) of TV character blogs.

Nigel Blog
http://blog.nbc.com/nigelblog/



Show: Crossing Jordon
Network: NBC
Active: February 2005 - March 2007
Comments: Yes

Schrute-Space
http://blog.nbc.com/DwightsBlog/



Show: The Office
Network: NBC
Active: September 2005 - present
Comments: Yes

Dave's Diatribe
http://www.didyouseethelights.com/



Show: Invasion
Network: ABC
Active: October 2005 - May 2006
Comments: Yes

Natalie's Blog
http://www.usanetwork.com/series/monk/webexclusives/blogs/teeger34.html



Show: Monk
Network: USA
Active: January 2006 - September 2007
Comments: No

Margene's Blog
http://boards.hbo.com/blog/Margenes-Blog/700000143



Show: Big Love
Network: HBO
Active: March 2006 - present
Comments: Yes

The Nurse's Station
http://www.seattlegracegossip.com/
og/Margenes-Blog/700000143



Show: Grey's Anatomy
Network: ABC
Active: April 2006 - present
Comments: Yes

From the Desk of Detective Sergeant David Gabriel
http://alt.tnt.tv/closer/blog/



Show: The Closer
Network: TNT
Active: June - July 2006
Comments: No

Hiro's Blog
http://blog.nbc.com/hiro_blog/



Show: Heroes
Network: NBC
Active: September 2006 - June 2007
Comments: Yes

The Emerald City Bar
http://www.emeraldcitybar.com/



Show: Grey's Anatomy
Network: ABC
Active: October 2006 - present
Comments: Yes

Barney's Blog
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/community/barney_blog/



Show: How I Met Your Mother
Network: CBS
Active: March 2007 - present
Comments: No

Frank Talk
http://blog.nbc.com/frank/



Show: 30 Rock
Network: NBC
Active: March 2007 - present
Comments: Yes

Creed Thoughts
http://blog.nbc.com/CreedThoughts/



Show: The Office
Network: NBC
Active: May 2007 - present
Comments: Yes

Jessica's Reflections
http://www.jessandtess.com/



Show: One Life To Live
Network: ABC
Active: July 2007 - present
Comments: Yes

Robin's Daily Dose
http://www.drrobinscorpio.com/



Show: General Hospital
Network: ABC
Active: July 2007 - present
Comments: Yes

Kendall's Hart to Heart
http://www.kendallhart.com/



Show: All My Children
Network: ABC
Active: July 2007 - present
Comments: Yes

McCallister & Me
http://blogs.abc.com/mccallisterandme/



Show: Brothers & Sisters
Network: ABC
Active: September - October 2007
Comments: No

"Hmmmm" by Randy
http://blog.nbc.com/randy/



Show: My Name Is Earl
Network: NBC
Active: September 2007 - present
Comments: Yes

Toxic Shark
http://www.toxicshark.co.uk/
Show: Casualty
Network: BBC
Active: October - November 2007
Comments: No

Cam's Blog
http://blogs.abc.com/camsblog/



Show: Big Shots
Network: ABC
Active: October 2007
Comments: Yes

Marmaland
http://blogs.abc.com/theclog/



Show: Carpoolers
Network: ABC
Active: October - November 2007
Comments: Yes

Confessions From The Front Desk
http://blogs.abc.com/dellsblog/



Show: Private Practice
Network: ABC
Active: October 2007 - November 2007
Comments: Yes

Video streaming and ISP traffic shaping

The above chart shows the data transfer usage for my broadband connection over the past month. The noteworthy change from the same usage chart for November? Over 2GB of peak-time streaming. The culprit? BBC iPlayer. Why significant? Because my ISP (PlusNet) uses traffic shaping to discourage/penalise peak-time usage, which I've been doing a whole lot of ever since my colleagues in BBC Future Media & Technology added a streaming component to the iPlayer in December. As a result, my "up to 8Mb" connection has been throttled to a painfully slow 125.87 Kbps (according to thinkbroadband's Speed Test) during peak hours, rendering web browsing tortuous and streamed video unwatchable (which is how it will remain until the end of this month's billing period).

PlusNet has a helpful page explaining traffic prioritisation (presumably so-called because it sounds slightly less sinister than traffic shaping), which contains the obligatory layman's metaphor:

"Think of it this way, the broadband network is like a motorway. When the traffic is light, all vehicles can move at the national speed-limit. Some lanes of the motorway have been reserved for important traffic, such as buses or emergency vehicles. During rush hour, most vehicles are forced to slow down. However, the traffic on the reserved lanes can continue to travel at their full speed."

The interesting word here is 'important' - an inherently subjective term (surely streaming video is important to me if that's what I happen to be doing? I don't want to be stuck in a bandwidth traffic jam if I'm trying to watch BBC THREE live or catch-up on the Six Nations). What ISPs are really interested in, unsurprisingly, is limiting bandwidth-intensive activities such as video streaming and P2P downloading which eat into their profit margins.

Until relatively recently, ISPs had a handy justification for traffic shaping: that the vast majority of video streaming and P2P downloading was illegal. This is becoming less true as more and more legitimate streaming and download offerings emerge (the BBC may have taken most of the heat on the bandwidth implications of iPlayer, but ITV, Channel 4, Five and Sky all offer similar services). Add new entrants Joost, Zattoo, Vuze, Babelgum, Jalipo, Veoh, Brightcove and Democracy (all reviewed here) into the mix and you're looking at a burgeoning market for legal downloads and streams.

So, what's an online telly addict to do? One option would be to change ISPs, although as David Meyer points out in a comment on ZDNet, "Any ISP which says it doesn't use traffic shaping at all is lying, unless it simply doesn't have enough subscribers to fill up its pipes". Part of the problem is that in the race to offer cheaper and cheaper (and in some cases free) broadband, profit margins have been squeezed to the point where a high-bandwidth user is no longer an economically viable customer. Unfortunately, that category of high-bandwidth users looks sets to grow exponentially as streaming and P2P downloading become increasingly mainstream.

One possible scenario, suggested in a typically polemical piece on The Register, is a return to metered pricing. Whilst this may feel slightly counter-intuitive, it is consistent with the idea of broadband as utility. I'm happy to pay for my water, gas and electricity on the basis of how much I use - why not my broadband? Personally, I think this is pretty unlikely. Most people were so delighted to see the back of metered dial-up access that it feels implausible that they'd accept a return to a pay-as-you-go model. A more likely scenario is that slightly more expensive, higher-bandwidth packages will increase in popularity for heavy users who (like me) would happily pay a bit more not to have their streams endlessly buffer.

My short-term solution is to return to off-peak downloading using Azureus, with its handy Speed Scheduler plug-in ensuring that it only downloads between the hours of midnight and 4pm (hence no purple in the Peer-to-peer bar). Not my preferred solution, not least because it requires me to decide in advance what I want to watch rather than sampling on a whim (which I've been doing a lot more of since iPlayer introduced streaming). I'm now back to thinking 'do I want to watch this programme enough to download a 600MB file?' to which the answer's often no.

Longer term I think I could well be shopping around for a package with a more generous bandwidth allocation and/or less severe traffic shaping. Any recommendations welcome.

Disclaimer: I work for the BBC. The opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the views of my employer.

Related fabric of folly posts:
Broadband as utility
Interesting times for the BBC online
Round-up of Internet TV services