Move Over Conan O’Brien, Terry Wogan Just Beat You
Remember all the talk of what would Conan O’Brien do after he left The Tonight Show? And many in Silicon Valley were looking to him to take up the mantle of the one and only true online talk show that matter?
Well, Coco, you missed your window.
This weekend saw a rather interesting experiment by the BBC. Sure it was all dressed up as a new show, and an exciting format that’s a little bit different, but a new show that embraced multiple online media elements, with enough familiarity to not scare away an existing audience? A host with a big desk, a chair for his announcer, a house band, visiting star guests and live music from the musicians of the day?
What’s not to love about “Weekend Wogan?”
All the elements are there on stage, and at a quick glance it’s set up like every other standard talk show with a touch of variety that you’d come to expect. All that was missing was a curtain to do some stand-up in front of… but with a recent knee operation, our host was back to the desk as quickly as his walking stick would allow.
But it’s the move of labelling it as a “radio” show that intrigues me. Because it’s not just a radio show. There’s the live audience element, making this feel more like a production to be seen… there’s the edited podcast that boils it down to a thirty minute commute length for people to download as a separate show; there are online video clips with some of the guests; and then the whole thing is available on the BBC iPlayer as a one hour video show to watch on demand.
Sure sounds like a 21st century online talk show to me.
Of course Wogan has one advantage that O’Brien doesn’t have… the BBC Licence Fee, effectively charging £12 per month to anyone in the UK who can pick up a TV signal, means that there is no reliance on sponsors to fund Wogan’s show. And I’m sure at this point people will be commenting about how evil the licence fee is.
I’m actually for the licence fee, for shows and experiments with new media such as Weekend Wogan. You could argue the BBC is using its power and reach to create a new market (something that’s right on the edge of the Charter); on the flip side you could easily say that without the proof that this works, there will be no market for others (such as Sky, STV or The Guardian) to exploit.
Weekend Wogan from a technical viewpoint is a success. Now give it a few months to settle down and find its own voice, and we’ll have a critical success as well.
