Over the next few months, I’ll be speaking with various executives across the television and film world to discuss their interactive strategies. If you’re interested in learning more, sign-up for our newsletter.
In this first interview, I had the opportunity to speak with Bill Binenstock, VP of CBS Interactive.
CBS.com is a destination for fans to learn more about their favorite CBS shows and immerse themselves outside the television set. During this conversation, we focused on numerous topics, including user generated content, YouTube and Facebook.
How does cbs.com support prime-time programming?
CBS.com is used in a couple ways when it comes to television programming. Prior to the show, the site publishes previews, so that the users are aware of what’s coming up. After the episode airs, it provides additional content to keep the viewer engaged between episodes. CBS also extends the “water cooler” moment for engaged audiences.
What are some of the common interactive tools that CBS interactive uses for its different shows?
Today, cbs.com uses a wide variety of community tools, including blogs, profiles, games, emails, (mobile) alerts, iPhone applications, social web, etc. Even forums associated with daytime programming, which historically have an older demographic, are continuously buzzing with activity. CBS.com allows users to stretch and engage deeper with the show.
How does Facebook help a popular show, such as How I Met Your Mother?
The Facebook fan page for the show has roughly 1.5 million fans and is amongst the top 3 fan pages for CBS programming. However, that wasn’t the case 12 months ago. Facebook helps the show in 2 ways:
- It provides another avenue to engage with the show.
- It allows other people to discover the show through their friends.
How I Met Your Mother also leverages YouTube by publishing previews. How does YouTube help the show?
As a comedy, How I Met Your Mother is a better candidate for viral distribution than an episodic show. Short previews and jokes can go viral very quickly and can have a positive impact on the show.
How important is it to publish frequent content for a show like How I Met Your Mother?
Preferably, it’s better to have more and more content on cbs.com because there are multiple ways to acquire content digitally. Therefore, the greater the amount of content on cbs.com, the lower the chance of acquiring and viewing content on other sites — legal or not.
How I Met Your Mother has an Adobe AIR powered desktop application. Why create this application and how does it help?
Different people access different assets in unique ways. As a show, How I Met Your Mother uses the web in many ways. All the URLs mentioned on the show are real and accessible. For example: www.tedmosbyisajerk.com, www.canadiansexacts.org, etc.
Adobe and CBS worked together to build this desktop application and while CBS won’t share numbers, they were pleasantly surprised with the number of downloads, with Facebook being a major driver.
What about mobile applications?
Mobile is of growing importance for the company. The TV.com (a CBS property) Android application was the second most downloaded application in it’s category.
User-generated content and CBS.
CBS has been aggressively using user-generated content as well as user-feedback across their many properties. One prime example was the recent Grammy awards, where users could vote on a music artist, who would then perform live — during the show. Consumers were also asked to upload video, which was then submitted to the Grammy production team and used during the show.
