Color Us Tickled: ScribeMedia Wins an Emmy
One of the truisms about Web-based programming is that it allows content producers to identify niche verticals and evolve content around it. With geographic boundaries a thing of the past, long tail viewership both a possibility and probability and pockets of interested and passionate followers, producers are developing content that never would have seen the light of day on cable or radio, let alone network television.
Viral blockbusters aside, the success of online programming is partly measured in the thousands, or tens of thousands. This is like independent records (at least when people were buying them), or that novel innovation, the book.
Last year we began a WebTV series called Reporting AIDS. The goal was and is pretty specific: cover the people, policies and issues facing the global AIDS community.
Does it have TV potential? Probably and possibly. But we’ve never viewed online programming as a minor league to the television majors.
WebTV as television lite is a mistake I think many make. Yes, and of course, they can work in tandem with each leveraging the other but the goal of Web programming does not need to be to make it onto television. We believe that sponsors, advertisers and growing communities around online programming can more than support a successful initiative.
Reporting AIDS fits this model as a strictly online venture, and one which we’re spinning out as a non-profit foundation to continue our coverage of this devastating global epidemic. We’re thankful that the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences recognizes the worth of online programming. And ecstatic, of course, that Reporting AIDS is now an Emmy winner.
That said, we don’t neglect the possibilities of cross promotion and leveraging that television and the Web can provide. Projects we’re working on that do just that include some documentaries that we’ll speak publically about at a later date.
What we can say is that one is a 6-part television series, the other a theatrical release. Our role is to create online communities around the subject matter so that future video and episodes find their audience and continued growth online. We believe in this online growth, even with niche subject matter, and believe it has greater long-term potential than the brief time periods when these documentaries will find themselves on television and in the theaters respectively.
Thanks to those who’ve worked so hard on Reporting AIDS. And thanks to all for your continuing support.
Michael Cervieri is Executive Producer of ScribeMedia.Org and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
truly impressive! what’s next for scribe?
Thanks, we’ve got all sorts of good stuff we’ll be rolling out in the next few months.