What the Digital Push Means for Teens (Ypulse)
Posted by Jacob Rothschild on October 27th 2009 in Generate PressWhat the Digital Push Means for Teens
Check out the original post on Ypulse HERE 10-26-2009
There’s been a steady stream of news on the digital content and branded integration front, culminating this past week with some major announcements. Just on the tail end of FOX’s plans to rebrand Fox Atomic as Fox Digital Studios, this weekend news broke that former Disney chairman Michael Eisner would be also be expanding his new media reach with increased production from web video studio Vuguru.
With teens and college students paying less attention to traditional advertising and going online to watch shows they may have missed on TV, we’ve seen the writing on the wall for a while now, as have many in the industry (see efforts to translate web series into TV shows, social media marketing campaigns, promotional interstitials etc.) The resulting experiments have been mixed, but with these powerhouses putting dedicated resources behind branded entertainment it’s hard not to wonder if we’re closing in on the tipping point.
To gain a better understanding of what’s kept broadcast networks from completely cracking the code thus far, and where the most potential lies, I caught up with Jordan Levin, CEO and co-founder of Generate, a multi-media studio that recently teamed up with TheWB.com to launch “The Lake” (pictured here) a teen drama produced by Jason Priestley that hearkens back to vintage WB shows . No stranger to that particular breed, Jordan is best known as the former CEO of The WB, responsible for helping develop the channel’s distinctive brand of youth-oriented shows (“Dawson’s Creek,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”). In other words, there seemed like no better person to talk to about what these sea changes mean for the teen audience.
Hearing Jordan relate the innovation we’ve seen outside of the mainstream industry to the young, offbeat showrunners he championed back in the early days of the channel, it seems like no coincidence that Buffy creator Joss Whedon is also on the front lines of the brave new webby TV world with “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” an independently produced musical web series, leading the way for inspired, less experienced content producers. Jordan says, “The cool thing right now is that when we started the WB, it was very hard for someone outside of the Hollywood system to get their voice heard. If someone doesn’t feel like they’re getting the voice heard now, it not only can be heard, but can be amplified by the power of social media. So digital has really catalyzed their ability to do something about it. There are thousands of narrative threads, amateur web series that are created by and consumed by peers rather than created by someone much older than them.”
As for those unheard voices, Jordan notes that this has increasingly become a problem for younger viewers, “The way networks choose to program television shows, doesn’t reflect the younger audience’s consumption habits… [web video and portable devices] create an opportunity to satisfy that audience by providing them with content that is more reflective of the way they view content.” He goes on, “It’s not only a question of the type of programming directed towards a younger audience, but when you look at the programming that targets them there isn’t a lot of diversity in regards to the world view…That’s one of the reasons why we see ‘The Lake’ succeed. It reflects a tone of programming that is hard to find on tv right now.”
Jordan points to the missing realism, we’ve often lamented here on Ypulse, that reality shows and privileged fantasies channels like The CW (formerly The WB) promote, as part of the problem, “I don’t fault one network for picking a specific point of view. I’m disappointed that television overall doesn’t offer a dimensional enough reflection of the emotional complexities of a younger audience whether it be teen or young adult. There’s a lot going on with the economy, ongoing war, the environment. When television as a medium overall, or television as an industry, sends out an image that presents a bit of a disconnect with the state of the audience it does create disenfranchisement. The message becomes, or at least can be interpreted, as this is how we as adults see young people.”
Still, when I asked Jordan about the future of this brave new world of entertainment, he appropriately expresses faith in the same demographic he’s built his career on: “Working with traditional companies one experiences the resistance to changing legacy models, but change is inevitable, and that change is going to be led by young people.”
