The BBC, comedy and social media - a recent workshop

Earlier this week we held the first of two workshops for the BBC’s comedy unit, looking at the practical impact social media has made on the entertainment industry generally and on comedy production in particular. 

BBC social media editor Rowan Kerek-Roberston (an old friend from the days of Double Shot’s early social media sessions for the BBC) talked through some useful general principles, while BBC Comedy Online’s Jon Aird and David Thair looked more specifically at how their unit was there to support the comedy production unit at the BBC. Justin conducted a Q&A with two comedians renowned for their creative use of social media: Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper (the YT clip above is drawn from their online-only and social media-driven project Tarvuism; for more on that, see Justin's post on collaboration models).

Some intriguing issues and questions for all of us emerged during the day, among them:

Scale and cost: The means of production - filming, editing - have become more accessible as they’ve become cheaper, and many great ideas need almost no money to do online. But some ideas do need TV-like budgets to realise them fully, whether it's for make-up, CGI or elaborate sets. Is it possible to make a smooth transition from one quality standard to the next? Is there anything which can made cheaper in order to make high quality production more accessible to those without broadcast-style budgets?

Authenticity: Is the social media space the right one for a large media brand like the BBC or Channel 4 Comedy? Or is it an odd fit, big TV muscling in where they don't belong? Do independent one-offs and UGC simply come over better?

Originality and plagiarism: If your ideas are your capital how can you develop great ideas with the community without risking being ripped off? Does it even matter? Is your capital something rather more subtle and complex than just your ideas?

Next week we’ll be re-running the session but with Graham Lineham as guest. We’ll be intrigued to see if we cover similar ground, or if the conversation takes us elsewhere.