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Fan experiences in 2020 will make or break the next decade of Television shows.
For those of us in the “new media” trenches in 2008, there are some echoes today of what the television industry was going through — and some compelling lessons we learned that can help navigate 2020 and beyond.
While television isn’t old enough to have experienced a global pandemic before now, there’s never been more content for audiences to choose form. What’s critical for shows this time around is to reach out and connect with those audiences. Audiences are eager and enthusiastic for entertainment — but it takes creative experiences to break through and invite audiences to become fans.
In 2008, I was a Transmedia Producer for major film and television franchises — organizing story worlds across platforms and exploring new media platforms for franchises like Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, James Cameron’s Avatar, Showtime’s Dexter, Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hasbro’s Transformers and Microsoft’s Halo. All of those titles not only survived the strike and the last recessions, but came through them stronger.
The biggest lesson from 2008 is that networks and shows across all genres that invested in engaging fan experiences set themselves up for years of future success, and those that coasted on announcement-based promotions were forgotten.
