Upstaged
I'm writing this on Sunday 27th January. I was supposed to write it earlier in the week, but we launched Upstaged on Tuesday and we鈥檝e been ironing out a few issues since. To be honest, it has taken up a quite a lot of my time ever since I started my job as Multiplatform Commissioning Executive at the 91热爆 last June - it was pretty much the first project to appear in my inbox.
It was an idea from (of fame). When I first read the pitch, it scared the out of me (being a keen ).
The idea was to create a site which allowed the audience / users / acts / people / whomever to show off their talent - not to a panel of experts, but to the public. That in itself is not that new - we have been voting on talent competitions for decades. But the guiding hand of the TV producer was always there to find the cream of the crop. Teams of researchers scoured the country a hundred times over to give us a chance to vote for the next Will Young, or . In this instance, we chose to leave it up to the audience to decide who should have the chance of fame, notoriety or infamy.
At this point I could go on to describe what the show is all about, what you have to do and how to sign up, but I think Scott Mills does it much more succinctly here.
I could also discuss at length how the idea fits into the Vision Multiplatform Strategy and the 91热爆 THREE re-launch, but Simon Nelson has that covered.
What I think is most interesting about Upstaged is how it challenges the traditional talent show format. The show is unique. In the ten week run, only the last three will be on TV. The previous seven weeks will exist online only and behind the red button from February 4th. Creating a new online talent show with a user vote has been made all the more challenging in the light of the recent concerns around voting and competitions.
We have developed Upstaged at the same time as the 91热爆's new voting guidelines have been written and we have had to ensure that we adhere to them. The whole premise is to use social networking to get as many fans as possible to look at and rate your act. As I write, one of the most popular acts is who have used their extensive networks to garner a great deal of support. Their pitch is well made and humorous. But how well they will fare when if they have to entertain the nation in a Perspex box for a whole evening? I am pretty certain they wouldn鈥檛 make it past a traditional panel of entertainment 鈥渆xperts鈥, but in Upstaged that doesn鈥檛 matter.
The whole project is a risk for the 91热爆. We have no way of influencing who goes onto the stages or what they do when they are in there (as long as it is safe, meets the taste and decency guidelines and doesn鈥檛 use animals).
On the other hand, after just five days the site already has a plethora of talented, entertaining and possibly insane acts so if you would like to see six hours of or hear play, then you just have to show them your support because no-one at the 91热爆 is going to (unless I just have).
I believe that in a new period of openness in the media, Upstaged is an important project - but what do you think? I would certainly be interested to hear your thoughts on giving control of 91热爆 web and TV space to the audience...
Martin Trickey is Commissioning Executive, Multi-Platform, 91热爆 Vision.
Comments
Don't forget about the Shenglanders.
We're trying to get our comedy show into the box in Bristol.
when i first read about upstaged i thought, GREAT.
when i reread it i though,WTF why oh why do we need a box?
The idea was good without the box, it seams like somebody went into a board meeting and proposed upstaged, the directors wern't sure so he started putting in random phases like "well but them in a box" and then we got stuck with the stupid idea!
without the box you could have a single website feeding into several shows,
a music section
a music video section
a news section
a tv review section
a news analysis section
a straight comedy section
a gaming section
and a something other section
you could basically have content to feed into other shows, as well as a show dedicated to it.
But the BOX means that all your left with are stupid girls group, upcoming music groups, groups of bloggers, and lets be honest, your probably going to want to take the air hole away from one of the above groups.
YouTube doesn't need a box and it produces plenty of better than TV content ( it just needs somebody to string it together, in a style other than SUMO )
Hi all Upstaged is the best thing on the web its addictive and highly imaginative idea although some viral bloggers have already exploited the loop holes in it as it's too open to everyone including viral and nutters it should have been a talent show but now thanks to the youstage vloggers its all turned into a popularity contest which is never good not even in the real world let alone the web it conspires an air of vote riggin say the vloggers got 25 people to click there profile 1000 times each each night before they sleep wouldnt that show you how easy it was for them to get to,such high rankings so soon while other bands and artist who believe in fair play and played by the Guidelines of fairness are now flogging a dead horse in 10 man race to underestimate the real talent and entertainment with a student version of a not so good tiswas it was open to exploitation in some ways the panel judges at least make sure that this sort of viral riggin does not occure and its for this reason that tight measures need to be in place to make sure that groups of no individual talent dont hijack the box's as viral thats what they do even on you tube they started it off themselves again by getting 25 or more Lazy workshy students to click the vlog a thousand times before bedtime so everyone else would be hoodwinked into thinking it was good and that that many individual had watch it when they hadnt it's a con trick made up from exploiters of the web moderators stop this which is wgy the vloggers never appear on any other TV reality show right it's a public diservice to allow this kind of fake senario's to get in the way of the real public's vote and does not support individuality at all.
I have given up watching the show after the travesty that has happened over the last two nights where a bunch of talentless self-satisfied internet geeks won by dint of sheer numbers of like minded internet geeks voting for them.
I estimate that Upstaged must have cost about 拢2 million to produce. Is this a good use of license payers money when the show can become hijacked like this? If someone like vloggers win then how is the show going to look to both your audience and also the purse string holders in the 91热爆 - by definition this will be the best 'talent' that the show can produce. Shame really, but I guess you have a huge flaw in the voting system that is going to be difficult to correct at this stage.
Another hugely important aspect is that the website really isnt up to the job, registering and logging on (if it even works) is painfully slow. The forum doesnt work. This could be fixed in a very short time or are you afraid of publicising adverse comments? The videos keep freezing, the voting doesnt always work and the 91热爆i feeds don't always work and do not allow one to switch between stages meaning that stage 1 will always have an advantage. Contender feedback is censored to ensure that it fits with 91热爆's world view.
After the recent furore at the 91热爆 concerning rigged votes etc. I think you really ought to be more careful.
This could have been a great concept but has been let down by technical
problems and a flawed voting system but most glaringly obvious is the almost total lack of publicity or advertising. I have heard rumours that it has been mentioned on the Scott Mills show. I have tried to listen but not heard a thing. Nothing on TV, Nothing in the radio times, not even linked to from the 91热爆 talent show page. It is redolent of the usual mediocre output from endemol and sad to say 91热爆3, which has a reputation of catering to a rather less than discerning audience.
I am fully aware that the 91热爆 is short of money and is struggling to come up with ideas but always dragging things down to the lowest level is not the way forward. I think you will find this is a view held by many if you took the time to find out.
I am pleased to say that since my last message here the show has really picked up and is definitely heading in the right direction. I think I may have been too harsh in my earlier comments and put it down to a bad day and an even worse back!
So my apologies if I offended anyone, keep up the good work
I'm a member of YouStage: Vloggers from the UK, and I agree, if you look at conventional talent; there are better more deserving acts. But that's not the point of this!
Upstaged has been badly marketed, poorly organised, and its neutrality towards the acts has been atrocious.
If we win this competition because our online audience is bigger than the audience the 91热爆 can generate, then that's THEIR fault. They should have made more effort to balance our viewers with theirs.
I'd also like to point out that the 91热爆 contacted us and ASKED US to be on the show. They wanted us there; they wanted our audience for their promotion. Ironically, if we win, everyone will hate the show because you all see it as unfair, and it will actually harm the show more than it will help.
Finally, I'd like to point out that we have all been on YouTube for over a year - we've earned our subscribers, the people of the net are not monkeys who do whatever we tell them. You should know - you're choosing to read this blog.
In response to the above comment, If you were invited to join the competition, where as all others had to "apply" or find out and you win, then the competition is basically rigged.
Whilst not a solicitor personally, I will certainly contact the ITC and tomorrow I will be contacting my solicitor for advice on the legallity of the "situation"
Certainly any other competition where this uneven system of application was shown would be shut down.
Unfair i say!
Hello, I suspect that the invite was probably fairly generic in the same way that members of the comedy community were invited to participate via the chortle forums. Though I could be wrong.
John,
good point. Its bears out some of my suspicions which caused me to make my earlier submission to this thread. I was particularly dismayed when all negative posts were getting removed from the youstagers profile after a few hours. I feel the 91热爆 have made a mistake in the voting system and it would have been much better to have one vote per session and no minus voting.
Just to address comments 6 and 7 above:
All acts that have applied and appeared on Upstaged have had an equal opportunity to get in the boxes and compete.
Prior to the launch of the site we posted requests for contestants on websites, in colleges and universities and to community groups.
We also approached hundreds of potential acts to guage their interest and see if they wanted to get involved.
However, every acts' pitches, videos, images and blogs have been their own. We have had no hand in the pitches, rating, voting, performances or results of any of the contests. We have gone to great lengths to ensure that it has been the public's decision alone that counts.
Martin Trickey (Commissioning Executive, Multi-Platform, 91热爆 Vision)
Thank you for you Martin for your response, it is nice to see a Television executive taking the time to reply to a forum post (although being the multi-media exec probably makes you most likely too!)
I can understand that with a new program with such a brave new concept would go out and seek entertaining acts to be part of their competition, I also feel however a slight mistake was made with the Vlogging comunity, as they do not have a talent as such, instead a comunity or fan base, it's a bit like asking David Beckham to participate without playing football.
Whilst i still have some issues with the voting system and some of the acts, I did really enjoy these series of programs and i hope that after some re-thinks and redevelopments there is a series 2.
It is 11:30pm, Sunday.
I am watching the live finale of the eponymous television show. I have never watched it before.
The screen shows a live feed to Bristol's Millenium Square on a wet and windy night. The frame is filled with soggy looking fans cheering in bedraggled bonhomie, shot low and wide.
Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills is walking the security fence asking inane questions of the assembled. The premise of this show seemed to run as follows: artists submitted their YouTube videos to the Upstaged Website and fans voted for their favourites. The best of these acts performed in huge glass boxes for public perusal. Now, during the live finale, a winner is to be decided. This premise sounds fascinating. My Housemate points out from behind his late-night take-away curry that this is 'a crossing of your worlds'.
I curse my inattention for not noticing any of this sooner and we agree that I may have missed the boat.
I curl up to watch with interest - entertaining fantasies of avant-garde installations, boundary-pushing music and confrontational free verse all vying for the attention of a tech savvy crowd of neo-luddite web geeks swarming in the streets of Bristol; People clamouring together, voting on their Blackberries, surrounding the glass boxes whilst the camera looks on - the online community going overground like a gang of rampaging techno-rebellious wombles inside the goldfish bowl of national television; My utopic, idealistic vision of online democracy paving the way for the future of mass decision making.
But, no.
That frame full of soggy looking fans cheering in bedraggled bonhomie is shot low and wide for a reason;
Because no one else is there.
At first I am irritated, thinking this is valuable work, until I see the 'best bits' of the various contenders; pole dancers, a man dressed as a badger and a lot of very, very average bands.
My crest is most definitely fallen.
The cringe factor is extremely high - most notably during a sequence where a girl tries promoting an 6 hour snogathon from her glasshouse, to which only 1 soul attends - alone in the rainswept emptiness. Apparently he is there just to eat his lunch. This is unintentional, coincidental, honest comedy.
There are two finalists in this contest; the first being The Vloggers. They are a bunch of nice, uncharismatic students who engage in cracker eating races and sub-par 'comedy' banter. The other finalist is Don1977, a singer-songwriter in his early 30's who reminds me a little too much of myself, except that I don't generally weep on stage. Don does, because he is happy to have 'gotten so far'. I watch through my hands (for I cannot watch with my whole face, lest I be burned by the mirror).
Scott Mills, who looks distinctly uncomfortable, says the performers that made it to the finals have been entertaining for up to 6 hours at a time, some of them for 3 days in a row.
My irritation turns to understanding.
Even in the most beautiful summer sunshine, it takes 30 years worth of stamina and experience for performers like Springsteen, The Stones and David Bowie to put on a 3 hour show, 3 nights on the trot and still leave the audience hungry. So, in the pouring rain of a cold Sunday night in Bristol, it is no wonder that few people have turned out to watch a man who sings DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's 'Summertime' a cappella.
Hopelessly disillusioned, I wonder what Joe Public is making of this.
Unfortunately, I have to relinquish my bias and believe The Internetional(sic) Community has spoken; truly - because there was no orchestrated pre-selection process; Anyone could enter and anyone could vote.
And, with that beautiful objective choice, without the subjective guidance of the producers, the online community has chosen overwhelmingly and honestly in favour of mediocrity.
I have to believe The Vloggers and Don1977 are the best the people of the internet think the web has to offer.
Therefore, I believe that the middlemen are a necessity, because it takes great talent to spot great talent.
Worst of all, I now believe that the Internet is the most efficient and user friendly medium for discovering the truth that, collectively, we have no taste.
Beautifully written Mr. Goodall, and, as a last minute discoverer, I can understand how you arrived at your intermediate conclusions, and final conclusion.
Do we have taste? Does the mob follow the mob? Will the youthful following of one finalist vote automatically for its idols as much for a vote for youth as a vote for the act concerned? Was there any real talent on this show?
As the Irish (sorry for not being as PC as I ought) joke goes: 'if I was going where you were going, I wouldn't be starting from here' What relevance does this have? None, I just like the joke.
Well maybe it has a small speckling of relevance. One act got it right from the start. They knew where to start from. Use their Internet might by combining forces and with the voting power of thousands, even tens of thousands, they would be unstoppable. Enough? No. Thanks also to the option to vote for an act with a '-1' every 3 minutes, such voting power could decimate the vote gathering of any lesser well-connected mortals. Anyone who came up against this powerhouse would have but one result - they'd come second in a two-horse race!
And the other acts...? Aah, they started from the wrong place. They first of all assessed whether or not they could be entertaining for 6 hours non-stop. Having convinced themselves that they could, they then went about the task of building their identity and marketing material (videos and photos plus a bit of sales-y text). Only then once this was posted on the Upstage site did they really think about their fan base - in virtually all cases, blissfully unaware of what was happening next door (so to speak), out of sight, in Dr. Vloggerstein's castle.
And so it came to pass, that the first week of Upstaged arrived. An innocent beginning. A pair of blue-grass buskers (twin sisters) seeing off a DIY comedian, a contortionist, a heavy, raspingly-throated-screaming rock band, and finally an Indie band (I think it was an Indie band - sorry if I got that last act wrong).
Four acts vanquished and the undefeated sisters retired - in accordance with the Upstaged rules. Then came the highlight of the occasion - a young cheeky chap who somehow managed to create funny songs instantaneously out of thin air - a door-to-door (make that box-to-square) salesman who could charm the necessary pantalonial details off any innocent individual passing by within as much as 40 feet from his temporary glass home.
Pitched against a gentle but unprepared female impersonator, Dame Margot, in the adjoining box, the merry minstrel seemed to command all external attention. He won the day. Day two for him was to be a bigger challenge, Electric Dolls, talented, scantily-clad, and hugely entertaining. Yet somehow, he pulled through (maybe it was voting power that swayed the decision, but they were in many ways truly equally absorbing acts).
100 spontaneously created songs under his belt, the likeable lad returned to face his third competitor. He knew at once that he was going to lose, he'd done his homework (albeit at the last minute, on the bus there, like any good youngster would). He was the first of the many to face the Vloggers. Yet try stil to be a giant-killer he did - he out-performed his previous two days, taking his spontaneous song total now to an amazing... 170! (a bit like a darts score that, sorry).
Maybe at this point it would be a good idea to reveal that this young whipper-snapper of a singer is in fact the younger of my two sons. So I make no apology for going on as I did.
What鈥檚 that I hear you say? 鈥 you had no idea there was such majesty englazed? You missed it all? And now you feel robbed? Well have no worries there, Stuart, as my son has a good deal of footage from his efforts on his own web page at chriscohenmusic.com and also on Youtube where he is known, for some reason unexplained, as 鈥楽lurpyJ鈥 (weird).
But back to the competition. I doubt that I was any different from any of the others who watched and supported. While my son was there to be on-stage, I would vote as if there was no tomorrow (so did his mum, naturally) giving him +5 stars every 3 minutes. I watched and I watched 鈥 I might flick to the other stage a few times, but they were boring (well maybe the Dolls weren鈥檛 quite so boring 鈥 I am a male after all!), and not worth much of my time of day. I always refrained from casting '-1' votes for the other acts though - silly me, I went all British sense of good sportsmanship about such a thing.
Once my son had been dispatched, I took a different interest in the show, and started watching it with a changed eye (not literally, I assure you). I didn鈥檛 find the Vloggers at all entertaining, but, then, I accept that I am from a different generation (I didn鈥檛 find Vic Reeves interesting some twenty years back when so many did - shows how different a generation I am from) 鈥 it鈥檚 all a matter of personal taste really, not forgetting, of course, that monumental voting power helps, just a tad.
There were a few acts that I liked for a while, but not enough to devote 6 hours of my time to (I鈥檓 also not so old that I don鈥檛 have a full time job to attend daily). 鈥 that is until Don 1977 happened upon the scene. I found him refreshingly different and also very talented. I COULD sit and listen to him for 6 hours given the chance.
Don dispatched one then two competitors 鈥 that was enough to see him through to the quarter finals (my son had dispatched two competitors but didn鈥檛 make it through 鈥 we never really found out why 鈥 the people behind Upstaged don鈥檛 say that much 鈥 they tend to act quietly in the background, snipping out this bit here, deciding on that bit there 鈥 all seemingly without reason). Don went on. Polekittens, no problem. He was through to the semis. Carrivick sisters 鈥 again Don won the day. But he was blissfully unaware of what he was about to encounter in the final. Were the Vloggers the better act? Not in my book, but they were always going to be unstoppable. And so they won. 拢10,000 found its way into its predictable pocket.
Had 91热爆3/Upstaged permitted you (and the rest of us) to continue to see the website with its videos, news clips, acts giving details of what they are doing now, and a very active forum, you might even now have been able to increase your knowledge and better your opinion of this enterprise. But sadly it has disappeared, and with it all that we remember and might want to recall. 91热爆iPlayer still offers some video footage you might like to review, but that too will soon disappear.
Do you know, now I come to think about it, it鈥榮 almost as though Upstaged has been a bit of an embarrassment. Heaven forbid! Of course , we might think that, but it鈥檚 doubtful as to whether anyone from 91热爆3 or Upstaged will verify or dispute this opinion 鈥 not publicly, anyway.
That's me done!
Hi Martin,
Your info sounds OK. but you miss a couple of important points (or rather consequences).
First, if getting votes is about building a fan base, then it stands to reason that acts contacted in September (and they were contacted - both the Vloggers and my son will confirm this), then time to market, so to speak, will always place the early entrant at an advantage. So you cannot have a truly fair system, by that I mean level playing field, when this happens.
Second point, in order to be fair, the rules that govern the exercise must strive to ensure that no skewing of the type that took place with the Vloggers would be tolerated. They didn't. In fact most of the rules involving selection failed miserably to ensure that the most deserving acts achieved a place in the quarter finals.
It's all very well to leave the decision making to the general public, but it is important to learn from history. I don鈥檛 know if you can remember the farce of the block vote that the trade unions practiced. Here, you could have the situation where, say, seven trade union leaders could be in a room voting on a matter of policy, but as each carried the voting power of the size of membership of their particular union, one person could potentially overturn the votes of the rest of the members in the room, just because of the size of that individuals union membership. It does sound farcical, doesn't it. It's therefore a shame that we have almost a repetition of such a system being operated here.
Mr Cohen,
Thank you for your succinct summary.
The Vloggers victory only seems to reinforce my disillusionment. If what you say about their methodology for winning is right, this voting system will always favour popularity over talent. Therefore, unfortunately, I do not think my opinion of this enterprise can be bettered - because the hook of the show is that very premise; that anyone can enter and anyone can vote.
Or to put it another way - try to imagine the horrific results if this system was used in a general election.
It was an internet competition run on the internet and appealing to people who use the internet. From the start people were encouraged to do things that were not 'just singing and dancing' and the specifications asked for people who could talk or make things or do anything at all to be entertaining for the time they were in the box.
I was a little shocked after hearing all about the show from various places for months (Chortle, fellow comedians etc) when I visited the site and realised that most people were treating it as a traditional talent show - something it was not, could not and should not have been. The site told people to use social networking sites to find an audience and so it is ridiculous to criticise those who did.
As one of the Youstage Vloggers I found it extremely unfair that the website and 91热爆 Three 'highlights' programme went out of their way to ignore the real highlights and focus on ridiculing and belittling participants - not just Youstage. That said, at every stage the website stories focused on the negatives and called us untalented. I strongly refute this - we were not a band, and so shouldn't be expected to have the same talents as a people in a band. That said we were all musicians, comedians, poets and filmmakers and demonstrated all these talents while on stage - not that you would know any of this from the 'highlights' show in the evening, that focused on a very bored-looking Scott Mills making fun of the day's contestants, or or the 'news stories' that were derogatory and unpleasant in tone.
Now there is no evidence the show ever aired and I am finding impossible to get hold of even a few minutes of the 40 hours Youstage spent on stage. We tried to keep the flow and make it a consistently entertaining event - so planning had one in the evenings and mornings before the show.
We tried to treat it as a telethon or a Saturday morning kids show. I have had a lot of positive feedback from most people who actually watched the streaming/red button coverage - but I very much doubt anyone would think much of any of the acts if they had relied on the 91热爆 Three coverage.
The members of the Youstage team have found an internet audience because people are entertained by them - nobody will watch something they don't want to watch, and they certainly will not vote for it. The people who were voting did so because they enjoyed what we were doing, presumably. Why else would they bother voting?
Most of the negative comments seem to be from people who are in some way connected to other acts - or those who were expecting the traditional talent show or only read the website coverage/saw the 91热爆 Three shows, rather than the streaming itself. It is not easy trying to do 40 hours of live TV with minimal planning, no script, many restrictions on what you are allowed to say and do and no direct contact with the producers while you are doing the live TV.
I believe what Youstage did appealed to the demographic that 91热爆 was trying to attract - yet the audience itself was insulted and ridiculed from all corners for daring to vote for something they enjoyed watching.
The page that remains is snotty and unpleasant towards Youstage. The comment - 'it turns out it's who you know' is ridiculous - who are we suppose to know? I have met very few of the people who voted for us - if we attracted an audience then we did what was asked for us in the competition rules.
Every one of the acts was encouraged to publicise the competition in their own blogs, social networking sites etc - that was surely one of the points of the competition. It is hard enough to get a break without being slated when you try for something. I am aware this whole post is defensive - but this is in the face of very many unfounded and baffling attacks.
Like you, Elise, I find it unbelievable that the 91热爆 (be it 91热爆 corporation, 91热爆3 or the Upstaged project team) blanked out the website only 4 days after the grand final - and with no warning at all that this was going to happen.
I complained through the appropriate 91热爆 media (phone and email 鈥 I even sent an email to Upstaged 鈥 waste of time there) and a week later received a phone call back to say, yes, it had gone, there was no trace and this was unusual - and that basically was all the comments I received back. No apology, no reason, no willingness to explain why it had been removed (pretty poor, considering websites for other programmes now months old still exist).
If they didn't like the controversy that was being aired on the forum, then they had the same right as anyone else to make reply, and they also had the ability to remove what they might have considered unpalatable comments with explanation why. I cannot say that I personally would have agreed with the second action, but this would have been better than discovering, completely without warning, that the whole site had been deleted - so photos, videos, information from acts about what they are doing next, web addresses, and an extensive and useful news archive have all just been obliterated, and, having done this, any chance that the organisers otherwise would have had to learn from this experience has been removed. Unless of course they have their own off-line archive of the whole enchilada (sounds more likely).
At least it tells us exactly how much they have valued the time donated by the acts, and also by their supporters. It is nothing short of arrogance and rudeness that they have acted in this way.
I think that you and I will always disagree about the ethics behind the way the show was run, Elise. For me, that you were encouraged to create massive online support is not the issue, it is just that the organisers must have been aware that as soon as your act was established, the contest was always going to be a one horse race. There was no one else that was going to be able to create such a following. I do find it hard to take on board that none of your team ever realised that this was the case. The other acts that knew of your participation, therefore really only went ahead because they would have the exposure of at least six hours of their ability to entertain 鈥 the prospect of winning the 拢10,000 just wasn鈥檛 ever going to be on the cards. There are other aspects of the rules and their application that also seemed illogical, but they are subordinate to this principal issue of voting power.
At the end of the day, I am beginning to think that the whole thing was just a method for the 91热爆 to test their multi-platform technology - almost the equivalent of a beta test of the facility. That they took the view that this could be packaged as a competition and presented as a bona fide programme begs the question as to what we can expect from the 91热爆 in terms of future 鈥榩rogrammes鈥. I don鈥檛 think they have done themselves any favours 鈥 the fact that they aired the highlights so late at night certainly sends a message that they didn鈥檛 want too many people tuning in as this might lead to even greater and wider criticism than the programme actually did receive 鈥 very much therefore a damage limitation exercise. And hence, a possible reason for the rapid removal of the website once it was all over.
I think it鈥檚 a shame that they cannot be taken to task publicly over the way they have run this whole exercise, as this seems to me to be the only way they might really learn the errors of their ways.
By the way, Elise, read the lead entry from Martin:
'The idea was to create a site which allowed the audience / users / acts / people / whomever to show off their talent - not to a panel of experts, but to the public. That in itself is not that new - we have been voting on talent competitions for decades. But the guiding hand of the TV producer was always there to find the cream of the crop.'
Seems someone up there thought it was a talent show, and that there would be some level of parental control, so to speak....
Thanks to everyone for their extremely interesting comments and thoughts above. I'm not going to respond to every issue raised but I would like to say a little about our perspective of how the show went and what we have learned.
When the live competition started I sat in portacabin in Millennium Square and watched the extremely talented Carrivick Sisters play for 4 days straight. I must admit it wasn鈥檛 what I expected but the sisters did a great job of mobilising their community and getting them to come along a vote. I would have bet before hand that most of the 91热爆 Three audience were not fans of blue grass but had to concede that at least for those four days the channel was blue grass central. This was new for 91热爆 Three to say the least.
From the outset we wanted to do something different, to try to do a show that took it's inspiration in traditional talent shows but was willing to be shaped by the audience.
Giving such a degree of control to those participating, supporting and voting was a big risk but we went for it anyway. By taking us, the producers, out of the equation we had no idea of what we were going to get but to be honest acts such as Polekitten, Badger Trap, Chris Cohen, Don 1977 and Youstage surpassed our expectations.
Each day, as a new act came in we never knew exactly how entertaining they were going to be or how much support they were going to bring. It was a complete rollercoaster and made for a lot of hard work. In my opinion the best act did not always win, but it wasn't my decision.
The fact that the shows were for 6 hours not 3 minutes, that we chose to do it in the public eye, not in a studio and to do it live, not pre-recorded were all risks. Some of these worked and some of them didn't. The voting and rating format was also something that hadn鈥檛 been tried before and the analysis shows that it was robust and appropriate to a six hour format but perhaps all a little too complicated overall.
We thought about keeping the site live for longer but for many reasons, legal, contractual and financial we have not been able to do this. We will learn from the experience however and incorporate all of that learning into future projects
Finally I would like to say a big thanks to all the acts that took part and to congratulate Youstage on winning. They understood the format, played the game and were worthy winners.
Martin Trickey (Commissioning Executive, Multi-Platform, 91热爆 Vision)