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ABC to trial audience voting on Q & A

Q & A will trial live audience voting via smartphones and tablets that deliver real-time results on-screen while the show is on air.

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Q & A is about to go one step beyond Twitter.

Next Monday night ABC will trial a new social media application that allows viewers to vote in real time, with results being incorporated into the show while it is on air.

iPowow enables voting on smartphones and tablet devices. Unlike 1902 phone voting, the usage by the viewer comes at no cost and the results can be tallied second by second on-screen.

It has been used by the Nine Network and in the US for events such as Miss USA and Ultimate Fighting Championship including with viewers watching in multiple territories.

Next Monday night’s Easter special on Q & A will be the first of four trials by the ABC.

“It’s like The Worm,” said Arul Baskaran ABC TV Controller of Multiplatform.

“We know that people are multitasking and playing with either iPads or Smartphones while watching TV. There seems to be a real appetite especially on things where people have opinions and want to share them.

“There’s a tremendous amount of social activity around Q & A on Twitter and Facebook.

“In the course of that one hour we’ll be able to feed back into that programme whether people’s perceptions shifted during the arguments that were presented.”

Viewers will be able to access the application at qandavote.tv from their phone or other device.

iPowow will also be utilised for an upcoming show called Can I Change Your Mind About Climate Change?

Baskaran says ABC is also considering developing a similar platform of its own.

“We’re not entirely sure whether we’ll proceed with this company or develop this capacity ourselves. But it’s an area we’re interested in with the second screens and tapping into the social activity for shows like Q & A.

“If there is an opportunity to build an ABC TV app that lets you do these things across a number of shows, then we’d look at incorporating this sort of functionality into it.

“My thinking is that people seem to have an appetite to have related information presented in the context of watching a programme. We have a number of websites for our shows, but what if we could service the more relevant stuff while a programme is playing out and present it on their phone or iPad? Whether it’s through an app or some kind of synchronisation –those are the things we’re thinking about.”

The Multiplatform Department of ABC TV, works closely with ABC’s Innovation division, which has been responsible for the very popular iView catch-up service. Baskaran explains that third party commercial companies are sometimes contracted in delivery of ABC products.

“Ultimately as a public broadcaster we’re trying to make sure that everything we do is free to the public. But we buy professional services from a number of people, such as content management or iView delivered by CDN. We work with a number of external partners on a fee per service basis.

“We build a lot of stuff in here, so there is Innovation that happens all around the ABC. There’s a team that’s dedicated to all of the new developments such as building iView for the iPhone or iPad.”

11 Responses

  4. The biggest flaw in this proposal is that the culture of the ABC, Q&A and its audience are left-leaning. Therefore, the voting outcomes would not reflect the actual community views. I’m sure they would know this and I think such a ploy would only be used to rescue the struggling Labor Party and Greens before the next election.

    A great example of this is whenever you look polls that are similar, which are printed in the left-leaning Fairfax Media and the right-leaning News Corporation. The poll results are often entirely the opposite.

  5. So, the opinions of those of us who don’t have a mobile phone don’t matter! Just like those of us who don’t use Twitter don’t count either…!

  6. I can live with the twitter feed, though it rarely adds anything to the viewing experience. Adding real-time-response polling won’t add anything either – other than more visual clutter. And if the guests are to respond to the polling, then it will be a distraction from any debate. There’s a real danger here that, in trying to be hip and “modern”, they’ll allow the technology and the audience involvement to undermine the show’s unique selling point – i.e. reasonably serious discussion.

    1. Screen clutter is a concern but it doesn’t mean there will be a Worm all through the show. It does mean they can show Live results when they so choose and it may just be a snapshot of a poll vote or similar. My understanding is iPowow is pretty flexible in its presentation formats.

  7. Just something else to clutter up the screen. It’s sooo distracting, I really hate it. What we need is a bottom-of-the-screen-blocker – a thick black line we can engage to hide all this crap.

    There’s millions of us out there who don’t tweet, have no interest in tweeting, and yet it’s being forced upon us just about everywhere. There’s no escape.

  8. Looks like a bit of a novelty that could be easily overused. However if they could do advanced things like include demographics it could be interesting. I hope they don’t lock it to just Apple devices like 7’s solution.

  9. Because, as we all know, if you want intelligent and worthwhile discussion around a complex and contentious subject, there’s no better way to go than online polls with pre-determined answers and a fundamentally unrepresentative bias to the voting pool.

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