itvt

–Corporation Unveils its Interactive TV Plans for the Olympics
–Round-Up of Recently Launched or Announced BBC Red-Button Apps
–BBC Three Invites Viewers to Help Create User-Generated Zombie Movie
–BBC Three Unveils Interactive Plans for “Spooks: Code 9″
–Extensive Broadband Video Planned for “Britain From Above”

The BBC has unveiled its plans for interactive TV coverage of the upcoming Beijing Olympics. A red-button application, available through the BBC’s BBCi service and dubbed Olympics Interactive, will allow satellite and cable viewers to choose from up to six channels of Olympics coverage 24 hours a day. A version of the app for the UK’s free-to-air digital terrestrial platform, Freeview, will allow viewers to access three extra streams in addition to BBC One’s and BBC Two’s linear-TV coverage. According to the BBC, this represents the first time ever that Freeview has offered three interactive streams. Both versions of the app will also allow viewers to access a range of text information, including news stories, an events schedule and a medals table.

Between 2:00AM and 6:00PM BST, Olympics Interactive will show what the BBC describes as “the best of the day’s action,” much of which will be live; after that, it will replay the major events of each day, allowing viewers to catch up. According to the Corporation, the application’s coverage will place particular emphasis on following members of the UK Olympics team. In total, the BBC says, the application will offer 2,450 hours of Beijing Olympics coverage, compared to the 1,000 hours of interactive coverage the Corporation offered during the Athens Olympics.

The BBC is also offering a range of Olympics-related content on the Web and mobiles. Video offerings on the Web will include six video streams of live simulcast coverage from BBC TV and the BBCi Olympics Interactive application (note: this video will be available only to UK residents); as well as on-demand highlights of each day’s action, and video training guides from the BBC Sport Academy that will be designed to help viewers learn more about the various sports that make up the Olympics. On mobiles, meanwhile, the BBC will offer on-demand video highlights.

In other BBC interactive TV news:

As it has done for many years now, the Corporation offered a red-button application to accompany its coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championship. The app offered a choice of up to five live matches (when there was coverage on BBC1 and BBC2, the Freeview version of the app offered a choice of four extra matches). The BBC also offered a digital text service that provided news and scores. Meanwhile, the BBC Sport Web site offered live streaming and on-demand highlights and interviews; and video “masterclasses” were available on mobiles. In addition, viewers could catch up on Wimbledon coverage that they had missed live, by accessing the show, “Today at Wimbledon,” on the BBC iPlayer.
The Corporation is offering a red-button ITV service to accompany its coverage of the annual UK classical music concert series known as the Proms. The service will offer, among other things, detailed background notes on each concert; also, on the last night of the Proms, viewers will be able to press red to choose between live relays of a series of “BBC Proms in the Park” concerts from various locations around the UK. In addition, the BBC is making its coverage of the Proms available on-demand through its iPlayer service for the first time this year.
The Corporation has signed an extension to its existing deal with Dorna Sports, the rightsholder for the MotoGP World Championship. The new deal, which gives the BBC exclusive rights to the motorcycle championship from 2009 to 2013, will see the BBC offering live coverage of MotoGP qualifying sessions, as well as MotoGP 125cc and 250cc races, through a red-button application. It will also offer them through the iPlayer.
The Corporation recently offered a red-button ITV application to accompany its coverage of the 137th Open Golf Championship. The app, which offered live coverage from 9:00AM to 7:00PM each day, followed by a highlights loop that ran throughout the night, also provided a live leaderboard, interviews, commentary, and the ability to watch holes 16, 17 and 18 as players reached the climax of their rounds.
BBC Sport Northern Ireland has launched an interactive TV service that allows digital viewers anywhere in the UK to access daily highlights of the Northern Ireland International Milk Cup youth soccer championship. The service, accessed by pressing the red button while watching any BBC channel, presents a round-up of the previous day’s action, hosted by Gavin Andrews. On August 1st, the red-button service will also allow viewers to view live, exclusive coverage of the Milk Cup’s Elite and Premier finals. In addition, the two finals will be streamed live on a dedicated area of the BBC Web site.
BBC Three has commissioned Hat Trick Productions to create a cross-platform “summer event,” entitled “Bryony Makes a Zombie Movie,” that follows YouTube celebrity, Bryony Matthewman, as she attempts to pull together a user-generated zombie movie. Matthewman posted a video call-to-action in her Paperlilies profile on June 2nd, and, a month later, she had received around 140 video responses, 3,500 message board comments and almost 280,000 views, the BBC says. Her goal is to create the movie by Halloween, when she plans to throw a premiere party that will involve as many contributors as can make it, all dressed in zombie costumes. BBC Three’s “Bryony Makes a Movie” project will offer documentary coverage of her efforts, consisting of two Webisodes per week over a 17-week period; according to the BBC, the Webisodes, which will be available on the BBC Three Web site, will include “coverage of shoot days, potential interviews with the luminaries of the undead world, make-up testing (exploding heads), and responding to the demands of the community (the film must feature a flying zombie–how?)” as well as Matthewman reporting on “the weirdest, worst and most wicked suggestions, video responses and volunteers from all over the world.” The project will also see Hat Trick producing a 30-minute TV program that tells the story of Matthewman’s project from initial video post to its premiere. “This project is part of BBC Three’s latest commitment to being a multiplatform network,” BBC Three controller, Danny Cohen, said in a prepared statement. “Bryony is part of a new generation of Internet talent that our young viewers are already engaging with and, for BBC Three, Bryony is someone we want to nurture.”
BBC Three has announced plans to offer a range of interactive elements to complement, “Spooks: Code 9,” a new series, premiering next month, that is a spin-off from the BBC’s acclaimed terrorism-thriller series, “Spooks.” In order to build interest in the show–which is set in 2013 and tells the story of a rooky MI5 team formed after London suffers a nuclear attack–BBC Three has tapped Agency Republic to create a viral marketing campaign that uses new face-mapping technology, in order to allow viewers to place themselves in a video of a “high-pressured undercover operation.” In addition, “Spooks: Code 9″ producer, Kudos Film and Television, and alternate reality game specialist, Six to Start, have created a multiplatform experience, that centers on a fictional future news agency called Liberty News and its Web site, www.libertynews.co.uk. Described by the BBC as “an advanced online news site with a twist,” libertynews.co.uk will feature breaking “news” stories, containing extra information on and photos and videos of events in “Spooks: Code 9,” immediately after those events take place in each episode of the show. Visitors to the site will also be able to upload their own videos, comments and photos, access information on the show’s main characters, and participate in live Q&A sessions with the inhabitants of the “Spooks: Code 9″ universe. The site, which went live several weeks in advance of the show, also features Web 2.0 applications, including an interactive map of London showing destroyed and contaminated areas, quizzes for emergency training, and live polls on where new cities should be built. “The universe of ‘Spooks: Code 9′ is fascinating and, with www.libertynews.co.uk, fans of the show will be able to explore the backstory of its characters and world as if it were completely real,” Six to Start executive producer, Dan Hon, said in a prepared statement. The Liberty News site/experience was created and executive-produced by Dan and Adrian Hon from Six to Start and Linda Paalanne from Kudos, with Rosie Allimonos executive-producing for the BBC. It was written by Tony Walsh (Phantom Compass) and directed by Adrian Ho. The “Spooks” franchise has featured a significant amount of interactivity over the years: series 6 of “Spooks,” for example, featured an interactive experience created by Kudos and Hoodlum that won the 2008 BAFTA TV Award for Interactivity and the BAFTA Craft Award for Interactive Innovation: Content.
The Corporation will offer extensive broadband video services on its Web site to complement its new series, “Britain From Above” (note: the series, which explores Britain from the skies, will consist of sub-series on BBC One, and BBC Two, and a special on BBC Four). A special section of the Web site, which the BBC says will be available for the next decade, will host 1) all the series’ episodes in “bite-size chunks,” so that viewers can easily access the parts that interest them; 2) eight behind-the-scenes videos that explore the making of the series; and 3) 16 specially commissioned shorts, entitled “Rewinds,” that feature locations around the UK and show how their landscape has changed over the last century or so. According to the BBC, “Britain From Above’s” Web presence was viewed from the beginning as an integral part of the series: “‘Britain From Above really marks a stepping stone in how we plan to develop content in future,” Simon Nelson, controller of multiplatform and portfolio for BBC Vision, said in a prepared statement. “It has a high-quality broadcast part and an exceptionally deep and rich online component. It features a world that people can immerse themselves in across all platforms, and has been storyboarded to work online as well as on TV from the project’s inception.”