Ask anyone to name a decent TV show website - one that actually adds value to the related programme - and you'd be hard pressed to get anything other than a furrowed brow.
The dearth of decent TV show websites is not entirely down to lack of imagination. It has a lot to do with the constraints of narrowband connections and a reluctance to invest in sites that don't get sufficient traffic. With moves towards the internet-on-TV model and the imminent arrival of broadband access, things are starting to change.
At present, however, the consensus is that websites dedicated to TV programmes are little more than brochureware, put together by a production team that has no direct contact with the programme-makers and finds it difficult to see beyond the ubiquitous chatrooms and character profiles.
Granada Broadband, the recently established interactive arm of Granada, is hoping to change all this on August 28, the date on which it launches its Cold Feet website. Cold Feet Online (www.ColdFeetOnline.com) should set new standards for the way in which websites for TV shows are developed.
Website producer Simon Bucknall says the danger in developing a higher standard of product is that future products will be judged by new benchmarks. "We've set the standard and we don't want to go back and put out lesser products. But by starting with Cold Feet, the benchmark has been set particularly high because it gave us so much to work with: fun, interesting characters and a young, net-savvy demographic. And we were able to work very closely with the TV production crew and the actors."
While most other TV crews tend not to extend a warm welcome to new-media people hanging around the set, Bucknall hopes this might change once they have seen the Cold Feet website.
Changes are taking place in the TV industry. Programme-makers have realised that a website can add a great deal to the programme, bringing in new users and encouraging people to get involved in the show. The Big Brother site (www.bigbrother.terra.com) is flawed, but manages at least to satisfy the viewers' desire for more footage and information. Channel 5's soon-to-launch Jailbreak will also make the website an integral part of the show. The plan is to provide daily news updates and 24-hour access to the inmates' movements via webcams, and to take the interaction further by encouraging users to register as escape committee members and mail escape tips to inmates.
The Cold Feet site makes good use of many of the features of the show and is divided into five self-explanatory sections (The Show, Short Cuts, Catch Up, Fun and Games and The Cast). Character profiles and storyboards will be updated as each series airs. Other basic features include online chats, message boards, an archive of the first three series, competitions and cast interviews. Where the site differs from the typical TV site is in the depth of exclusive content developed for it.
One of the innovative ideas built into the Cold Feet website is the behind-the-scenes footage filmed by the Granada Broadband website team. The clips, between three and four minutes in length, show the actors relaxing between takes and include interviews with cast and crew, outtakes and fly-on-the-wall footage of the making of the show. Two clips will be added to the site each week, building up a database of footage, which can then be sold as a finished product.
One plan under consideration is to package the footage as a DVD and sell it to another channel, such as ITV2. Another way of making money from the site is to introduce advertisers and e-commerce part ners, such as eBay. A compelling aspect of the new site is the character-oriented email service that will be tied in to the storylines and sent out every day. The email feature will give the impression that messages are written by the characters, emailing each other about plot developments and their feelings for other characters. Having drafted in the services of the show's scriptwriter, Mike Bullen, Granada is hoping to shift the focus away from the weekly show, and develop an ongoing narrative and affiliations between the characters and the fans.
"The stuff we've been developing is ground-breaking, particularly the synergies we're introducing between the TV show and the interactive services," says Bucknall. "By having the characters send emails to each other, we're making them appear more rounded and adding to their appeal."
Little on other TV show websites can compare to this service, although the concept is not new - cK-One ran a similar email campaign based on characters from its advertising. However, other websites are similarly focusing on getting viewers involved daily with a weekly show. Hat Trick Productions' Have I Got News for You, for example, has been building up a loyal daily following with its recently launched site, Haveigotnewsforyou.com. Paul Zwillenberg, managing director of < kpe > Europe, a consultancy/incubator hybrid which has set up a venture with Hat Trick Productions to develop web programming (HKI), says the HIGNFY site is just a starting point.
"It gave us a way to understand how viewers can interact on a daily basis with a weekly programme," says Zwillenberg. Despite receiving no on-air promotion on the show (because the site was developed independently of the BBC), he says the feedback has been very positive, and that more than 10% of new visitors who register go on immediately to play the games featured on the site.
The move towards a more intimate relationship with viewers - Cold Feet has 8.5m - is Granada Broadband's longer-term strategy, a strategy that sees the phasing out of the g-wizz brand. Justin Judd, controller of content and production at Granada Broadband, says it's all about turning viewers into customers through additional services. "There is limited appetite for extra soap-related material, given that the programmes are aired so frequently, so what we have to do is find new ways of attracting people to the sites," says Judd.
Having worked as a TV producer at Granada since 1994, Judd was seconded to Granada Broadband five months ago to work on closer integration between Granada's programming and its interactive services. His appointment has already paved the way for exclusive footage on the Cold Feet website, and now he's taking steps to change the brochureware sites and correct mistakes by building in more interactive content, such as Rovers Return and Woolpack pub quizzes.
The new Granada Broadband strategy appears to be in line with the views of industry experts. Zwillenberg says: "Broadcasters are making the same mistakes that newspapers did when they went online. It's not appropriate just to repurpose content. It's encouraging to see major media companies starting to experiment with broadband - if they don't, they'll find themselves very far back. Entertainment is to broadband what sport was to BSkyB."
While things are moving in the right direction, the long-term vision - all users accessing the website via TV while watching the programme - is still some time off. Conscious of the upcoming change, Granada is gearing up to launch PowerChannel, its TV-based analogue internet set-top box, in October. The TV internet product - free, provided users participate in monthly questionnaires - will be supported by a new entertainment portal that will promote Granada Broadband's websites. By 2001, Granada PowerChannel expects to have more than 1m subscribers.
As its name suggests, Granada Broadband is conscious that the future for broadcast entertainment on the net is heavily dependent on the uptake of broadband. So it must be reassuring to Granada chiefs to hear that their interim strategy is getting the thumbs-up from erudite consultants.
"Granada is taking important steps to understand how users interact and the value of cross promotion," says Zwillenberg. "Broadband is going to create the same sort of fundamental change that narrowband caused in book retailing and financial services. The internet has not yet hit the entertainment business. We're talking about a sea change in the way users get entertainment - but it's just the beginning."
