CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster, has jumped into combining social media and interactive TV, using never.no's Interactivity Suite (IS) to display Facebook and Twitter comments, conduct real-time polling and otherwise interact with audience members during its news show Power & Politics.
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CBC's Power and Politics displays Facebook and Twitter comments in real-time. |
And, it's just the first of many shows into which CBC plans to integrate the Norwegian company's technology.
"The never.no Interactivity Suite allows our producers and hosts to interact with the real-time social conversation," said Allan Giacomelli, art director at CBC. "The Interactivity Suite not only aggregates the conversation, but also ties directly to our graphics environment, streamlining the entire process."
The real-time interaction enables the show's producers and on-air talent to hear and react to input from their viewers, and changes the flow of the program accordingly. Since deploying IS, Power & Politics has already tripled its Facebook page likes.
"When discussing politics on live TV, everyone has an opinion," said Evan Solomon, host of Power & Politics. Now we have a way to feed those opinions directly into the program and let the people be heard."
The shows' producers use IS in the control room to ingest social media and user-generated content in real-time, moderate that content and then put it on the air. Operators can control the on-air graphics from within the same interface.
IS supports social TV by enabling viewers to influence a broadcast in real-time and by allowing them to interact with one another and the rest of the world.
"CBC is using the power of IS to take user input from social media to air in real-time," said never.no CEO Lars Lauritzsen. "Now, not only can they include the audience in a more profound way as they discuss topics the viewers care about on this particular show, but they've got the foundation for an interactive environment on other programs, as well."
For more:
- see this release
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