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The 2006 Edinburgh TV Festival is getting underway with a good humor spoof episode of the popular Apprentice program, casting media executives in the world of contestants. Judging by the response, it's a hit.
But you only need to survey the schedule to get the distinct sense that the overall mood here is not quite so jovial. For instance, there's a panel on ways that program makers can win back the young audience, tellingly entitled "I'd rather have a wank". There's another discussion about the tendency to make ever more extreme programs, eh, that's called "Boy With an Arse for a Face", that's not to mention another talk called Why I Hate Television. Of course it's not all pessimism here, but this is very much a snapshot of an industry in transition.
Alison Sharman is an Advisory Chair at the festival and ITV director.
We've entered the digital age, all the big, big organizations, the BBC, ITV, Multi Tele, etc. are rolling out their digital strategies, so really, this was about looking at those strategies, eh, dissecting them, and kind of pulling the whole digital world apart. Eh, so consumers now consume content in incredibly different ways.
ITV's controller of emerging technologies Simon Fell illustrates some of what that network is for the future.
OK, well here, we are showing eh, a variety of technologies. We have a multicast technology on the Internet where we’re broadcasting, eh, pictures live over the Internet and receiving it here with a number of different bit rates, ah and we demonstrates people how the Internet can be used to broadcast programming.
On this phone, we are showing, un, three, eh, the telephone company's handset, with X-Factor content on it from ITV. This is an example of how we will be shortly streaming TV programming from ITV while on the three platforms.
The TV festival continues throughout the weekend with some big names dropping into Edinburgh to deliver speeches. Former US Vice President Al Gore leads the list talking about the on demand and online future of the medium.
There certainly is a buzz about the place, but if Sharman has a way, it won t be the same festival next year.
I think traditional TV is absolutely under threat. My ambition is for the end of this festival, which is called the Edinburgh Television Festival, that it should be renamed the Edinburgh Media Festival next year. I think completely TV is under threat. I think it has to evolve, it has to change, it has to adopt some of the technologies that is, that is rivals, a, a taking on, or running with.
This shop window says it all. Some people have a very different idea of what is high-tech. Matt Kelvin, Reuters.
Vocabulary
spoof—noun. A gentle satirical imitation; a light parody.
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