Interactive TV Shows

Our Sandbox project is to create a TV gameshow format which audiences can play along with on their laptops - kind of like the pub quiz you're allowed to cheat in. Sandbox provide 'industry advisors' and I had my first meeting with one this week. Gavin Henderson is from RDF media with particular interest in cross media production. I outlined some of our ideas so far to him and got some very valuable feedback from a TV perspective. I'm starting from the point of view of wanting to create a new form - a collision of TV and web or passive viewing and active participation. My urge is to create something very new and original. His viewpoint is that TV feeds off other media like the web, but emulating it's interactivity isn't necessarily of interest to audiences. TV is essentially a passive experience and interactivity can break the bubble of immersion. There are few successful interactive TV formats - eg Big Brother. It was a very valuable conversation and a useful reminder of how conservative TV is and how slowly it evolves. We'll have to gently bring our audience to the act of switching on their laptops and interacting and at the same time make sure it's a cracking TV show in conventional terms.