Viral content hits TV screens

November 24th, 2006 by Wendy McAuliffe

This week’s Popbitch email gives details of a new TV show, Totally Viral, which will debut on UKTV G2 on Monday at 10:30pm.

Dubbed a “a technicolor cacophony of weirdness from the internet” by the UKTV press office, the programme promises to be a fusion of user-generated video and the most popular viral content from the web. For a sneek preview of some of the first clips, check out the trailer on the UKTV site.

It had to happen. In the same way that online advertisers are trying to reap the benefits of social media and viral content, broadcasters are similarly looking to try their luck.

Taking viral video to the TV will open up a wider mainstream audience for advertisers to reach, and so it will be interesting to see how commercial this venture becomes. To stay true to its roots, its user-generated video will need to outweigh its commercially produced viral video.

However, saying that, I found out yesterday from an expert at Spannerworks that when you type ‘advert’ into Google, the second natural search result links to the Sony Bravia advert. So if you ever doubted the popularity of commercial viral video, that says it all!

                              

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