philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

‘Gamification’: The Way to Revive Reality TV

Last year, Asahi TV Corp. and content-fingerprinting specialist Vobile Japan partnered on an unusual experiment for an unscripted primetime series that blurred the line between contestant and audience. When the “Survivor”-themed format featured an on-air personality harpooning fish, viewers were invited to use their smartphones to do some spearing of their own, competing for points by snapping photos of the catch onscreen.

The point was to hook not just fish but also viewers in the treacherous waters of live TV, where ad-skipping DVRs and a sea of competitors make achieving decent ratings increasingly challenging.

It’s an odd example, but one that demonstrates the direction TV networks are going to have to go with reality TV to preserve the prime value of that first window, where most revenue is made. This gamification of reality TV is a trend no one has seen coming, yet it feels inevitable: leveraging second screens to bring back an urgency to watching that first screen.

See the full article here: http://variety.com/2014/voices/news/true-interactivity-could-revive-the-reality-tv-genre-1201075198/?curator=MediaREDEF