Forget Must-See TV, Welcome to the Era of Must-Participate TV

[Commentary] When the first commercial TV network in the US went on the air nearly 70 years ago, so began a seemingly unending era of one-way network transmissions to the viewers. Yet despite all the evolutionary changes that have remade the TV business in the last 20 years, too many people in the industry today are still producing and broadcasting that one-way, passive TV viewing experience to the audience. Not a stunt nor gimmick, the existence of what many have referred to as ‘participation TV’ is serving as a vital tool and a new viewing accelerator for a business that is hungry to boost ratings, enhance revenues and provide advertisers with a more compelling and effective marketing spend that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else.

The key is to create a two-way bridge between the audience and the content, where they have their eyes on the TV and are leaning in. It’s not enough to encourage viewers to visit a website or join a social media conversation. They are taken away from what they are watching when that happens -- by posting a tweet, visiting a website -- and you’ve lost them. Because people are already on their mobile devices -- credible research shows that 85 percent of viewers watch TV with a connected device in their hands -- we need to make the best use of this opportunity. Each of those devices is the natural participation TV-enabling companion. Regardless of the genre -- live sports, news, comedies or reality -- the time for creating better television with real-time engagement at scale, is now.

[Gavin Douglas is the CEO of iPowow, an interactive media company]