TV and Tech innovation at MediaCon2015

by Startacus Admin

Jason Karayiannis as his Twitter Bio tells us, is a Storytelling Connoisseur. Running @onwrd - a photography and videography studio based just outside of Belfast. Jason recently attended MediaCon - an inaugural conference for TV & Tech innovation in Dublin. Here Jason shares some of the key points listened to and learned.

"Hosted in Dublin’s beautiful Mansion House, MedaCon's debut conference for TV and Tech innovation, Ireland dealt with topics from live streaming social media platforms to funding international tv series, with a range of talks and discussion panels about how media has evolved over the past few years with an explosion of consumption methods.

Annemarie Tomchak from the BBC opened the conference with a fantastic talk around social media and in particular live streaming platforms such as Periscope, and how these platforms have been used and abused. She discussed the problems female hosts have with sexist and abusive comments as one of the apps features apart from live streaming also has the option for the audience to interact live with the host via comments.

Engaging some of the latest apps and a glimpse into what is to come with live feeds. Tomchak talked about how the BBC’s trending division have been embracing new types of content.

Live streamed audience engagement.

Finishing up her talk Tomchak engaged the audience through a new Facebook feature (explained here on Techcrunch) which allowed her to live stream the audience and ask questions directly through Facebook. A fantastic way of practicing what you preach with a live demonstration of her discussion topic.

News Whip’s Paul Quigley

Paul Quigley of news whip talked about their app and how it tracks social spikes and trending topics. I thought this was great as it discussed using data to base decisions, something which I think will become more popular in the future.

He continued by talking about popular TV shows such as Game of Thrones and how they could track the most shared articles written with the title of the show in them. Allowing producers to track attention given to media on social platforms.

What’s the next trend? (No idea, ask Paul.)

Sky insist that TV isn’t going anywhere and while I would tend to agree, the way we interact and consume it is moving at an alarming rate. Apple having announced the new Apple tv which will, fingers crossed, be an improvement on our scheduled model.

Availability and flexibility to watch what we want and when we want seems to be more important than the content - or at least on apar in certain situations - something I can very much understand. I don’t have live TV and haven’t missed it in the past 2 years. Streaming “type” services allow me to access all the content I want easily and on my own terms. If a show isn’t accessible via these services, no matter how good it is, I will most likely not watch it.

Rune Møklebust from NRK the Norway broadcasting corporation talked about “slow media” and several documentaries that they have made in Norway. My favourite was their first venture into “slow media” a 7 hour train journey with a multi-cam setup on the train showing viewers beautiful views of the journey. He talked about audience engagement with their live streamed boating segment that had massive public engagement with people all over the country wanting to be involved in the documentary.

A lot of focus at the conference was around the subject of funding and how this is becoming harder to achieve as a single entity but rather something that needs to be done in partnership, with the rights to a show that can be sold globally.

However, if I could take away one thing from the conference it would be the importance of story. Telling the right story, involving and engaging with your audience; starting with great content that applies to a local audience but which can be easily adapted for a global one.

I will finish with two links and can only hope that next year's conference includes something similar.

First the future, a tv concept by French designer Samuel Medvedowsky. In the post Sam talks about the experience of tv and how that could evolve.

Secondly is a book from the “do series” called Do Story - How to tell your story so the world listens. An amazing book about story telling.

Photo's care of and care of Jason Karayiannis 

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Published on: 23rd September 2015