NM2, which came to an end in August after three years, explored the new possibilities broadband can bring to TV for both producers and the audience. The aim was to discover how to develop new media forms that could thrive on the characteristics of broadband networks.

The project brought together players from various segments and countries, including the telecoms and TV segments (such as BT, Telefónica and Illuminations Television), and the academic world (such as Cambridge University, Malmö University and the University of Ulster).

Doug Williams, a broadband research project director at BT who led and jointly conceived the project, acknowledges the scope for future TV services and new forms of storytelling. 

“We wanted to think beyond video-on-demand because broadband changes the way we watch and produce TV,” Williams says. “The feeling for the project was that future mass-market media will enable viewers to tailor content to their individual taste. It is now possible to adapt to viewer preferences, and we have to explore these opportunities.”

Eight media productions utilizing interactivity went live during the NM2 project, spanning the genres of news, documentary and drama.

One example, Accidental Lovers, was a drama for Finnish TV station YLE where viewers could decide how the plot would evolve and even end. The show, a love story between a cabaret singer and a rock star, was broadcast live and showed text messages from viewers on the screen. These messages were sent via mobile phone and scanned by a machine that, depending on certain keywords, chose voice-over responses for the actors to use and determined which video sequences were cued up to play next. 

“The 12 episodes worked out well technically,” Williams says. “The interactivity was good for this kind of story, exploring the various ways a love affair could work out.” 

Other productions included A Golden Age, a documentary exploring Renaissance art in England, and My News & Sports My Way, a digital interactive archive where viewers could select and combine news and sports pieces of their choice with the help of their remote control. These productions explored the way that modern broadband communication and interactive terminals could lead to new media genres.

NM2 has also led to a set of prototype production tools to help media companies produce interactive and personalized TV. These tools are aimed at media professionals and media schools in particular. The tools are free, for now, as they are for research.

“We are making the production tools available to the public because we are keen for people to explore new programming genres,” Williams says. “If people develop great concepts that they want to deliver commercially, we can explore that with them, which is, of course, a different commercial discussion.

“The media industry and students now have tools and ideas, and hopefully this will allow production of personalized, non-linear broadband media.”

Helena Jansson
Editorial Services