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Case study, Roadshow North, Inverness: Jane Hogg
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Nielsen’s latest survey: most online content should be free, but some should be valued (case in point: NT Live!)
With the San Francisco Chronicle’s online offering today reporting on Nielsen’s new survey that 85% of internet users want online content to be free, cultural organisations could begin to panic about what the business model is for digitising their product…However, as ever, I’m not panicing, and am quietly confident
Nic Covey, Nielsen’s director of cross platform insights, wrote in a blog post about the report, “Changing Models: A Global Perspective on Paying for Content Online.while there were no clear-cut categories of content that will successfully sell online, there was a “definite maybe,”
“When asked to focus on specific types of content, survey participants are more willing to at least consider paying for particular categories, especially if they have done so before,” Covey wrote. In four categories – theatrical movies, music, games and professionally produced videos – 50 percent or more said they would consider paying or have already paid for online content. At the other end, less than 30 percent said they would consider paying for social networks, podcasts, news-talk radio, consumer-generated video and blogs.
The idea that quality content – whether that quality resides in the value of the content or the aesthetic – concurs with the new report from NESTA on the Royal National Theatre‘s NT Live! productions. “Beyond Live: digital innovation in the performing arts” proves that not only did NT Live! productions sell out; they also sold to a different demographic (and so created new audiences for the work); and audiences valued the shared experience of seeing something live and with other people – going against the perception that on-demand entertainment is preferred for digital delivery.
This is excellent news for the RNT, and great news for the rest of the cultural sector. The new work appears to be sustainable in that a new, wider audience is being reached without impacting the environment by requiring them to travel to a London-based venue. Although NT Live! is a hybrid between a live performance and online experience, the lessons are universally applicable to culture. What we can aim to create digitally is special, unique, contextualised experiences, that new and existing audiences will pay for. They will pay for what is scarce online: meaningful experiences (content and context) and relationships based on something real and trusted (curation and community).
The artistic/cultural product has become more than just the product. Its become a service! Discuss
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Contact Theatre asks you to #follow_me
Manchester’s Contact Theatre has a unique piece of interactive theatre starting this evening until Saturday. #follow_me as its hashtagged twitter name title implies is a show not just about social media but which uses social media.
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Digital Theatre launches – HD theatre on your hard drive!
Digital Theatre has launched! Using up to 13 cameras to capture the performance, English Touring Theatre, RSC, Almeida, Royal Court and Young Vic content can for £8.99 be yours in HD. The papers have talked about the idea replacing the thrill of a live show, and of causing a threat to the live, and this is of course usually the nervous counter-argument against digital recording of theatre companies less comfortable with the idea of their audiences seeing their work online. I find this argument tiresome and insulting to audiences who of course know that the live performance will be the one that makes the hairs on the back of their stand on end as they feel the collective body heat of the audience rise during a tense scene: but in the absence of the cash to pay for the ticket and the trip to London, and in order to avoid the guilt of an expanding carbon footprint due to art, I’d rather see the work from theatre companies than miss it. Audiences still understand live experiences, and the emerging experience economy that we’re seeing as a current cultural behaviour (living in the now, instead of in the future, a desires to collect as many experiences and stories as soon as possible, is addictive) is growing, not shrinking. All things live will continue to rise in value as the digital world encourages copying and sharing. The live experience is the thing that can’t be copied, the thing that has uniqueness and a one-off factor. What do you think?
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Theatrical Ambition Hits the Spot
When Oldham Coliseum began working with AmbITion 2 and a half years ago, alongside all their hopes to improve their ICT infrastructure, their website, and their staff skills, they always had a clear idea of what digital might do for them artistically.
In particular, they saw an opportunity to bring together the skills of their staff in the main theatre, with the vibrant energies of their well-regarded education work. Last night, with the first performance of “Heaven Spot”, all those ambitions were realised.
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AmbITion started life in England as a pilot programme for the arts and cultural sector in the North West and East regions. more... -
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