tv – Page 6 – Rob Mansfield: Content-ment

What TV channels have to learn about hashtags

Last night saw the return of Mad Men to UK TV screens on Sky Atlantic, although it had a far more limited reach than before when BBC broadcast the feted TV series.

As I was watching, I also kept an eye on my Twitter stream to swap comments with the, admittedly-few, others who were also enjoying the show.

Naturally, I appended a #madmen hashtag to any tweets, but was surprised to see that Sky was offering up a different option: #madmenonsky. I was baffled. OK, so Mad Men is showing on Sky, buy why does Sky feel the need to remind everyone of that fact?

A brief search on Twitter showed that Sky’s move bombed. Although a few people used the #MadMenonSky tag, the far more obvious #madmen was the clear winner.

Sky isn’t the first broadcaster to try and get people to use an unlikely, branded hashtag. During X Factor, ITV always try to get people to tweet and append #itvxfactor. While they do have some success, the much more obvious #xfactor always wins out.

It’s an odd attempt to commercialise tweets that shows, yet again, how many big companies fail to grasp how difficult it is to impose their own will onto the Twitterverse.

The BBC probably doesn’t have the same commercial pressures, but even they still try to shoehorn the channel onto Twitter, opting to steer tweeters towards using #bbcapprentice rather than #apprentice.

TV channels – and other brands – need to understand that Twitter is made up of individuals, not an amorphous mass. Yes, people follow the herd, but they can also smell an unnecessary commercial plug and do something to avoid using it.

My memories of Blockbusters’ Bob Holness – much more than the Baker Street saxophonist*

It is with great sadness that I heard news of the death of Bob Holness.

To many 30- and 40-somethings, he will be remembered as the host of iconic quiz show Blockbusters, but his career started long before that, being an early BBC Radio host (alongside Terry Wogan and Jimmy Young) and he was also the first person ever to voice James Bond.

However, my memories of him are more personal, having been lucky enough to appear on Blockbusters in the late 90s and a far less well-remembered primetime game show called Raise the Roof in the mid-90s.

The genial face he put across on screen was completely mirrored off-screen. The atmosphere backstage at Blockbusters was bit like a youth club, with up to 40 contestants waiting in the green room at any one time to appear on the next programme (some contestants waited up to 2 weeks to go on).

At lunchtimes in the canteen, Bob happily ate with all of us and chatted away about his life and experiences, as well as found out about all of us – it was clearly a fantastic gig, as far as he was concerned.

Much later – in 1995 – Yorkshire TV tried an ultimately-doomed Saturday night game show with Bob once again in the quizmaster’s chair.

He claimed he remembered me from my appearance on Blockbusters 6 years previously – which I know now probably wasn’t true, but at the time, it seemed emininently believeable.

As before, he was very warm, genuinely interested in all the contestants and merely confirmed my previous memories of him.

That Raise the Roof failed to become the star vehicle for Bob that he probably deserved was in no way down to him – the format and questions were the problem, not the host.

One of the nicest men in showbusiness – completely genuine and totally unstarry. RIP Bob!

* Yes, I know it wasn’t Bob who played on Baker Street – it was really Raphael Ravenscroft.

Cheryl Cole’s sacking is no different to the real world of work

In case you hadn’t heard (arf, arf), Cheryl Cole has been booted off the X Factor USA judging panel and hasn’t even made the UK X Factor roster of judges.

But let’s leave aside the fantastic publicity that this has brought to both X Factors and try to examine this as if it was the scenario in a normal job.

I’ve worked for a number of companies over the years and seen, on more than one occasion, someone come into a job but not get past their probation period.

You see, no matter how great a person seems at the interview stage and regardless of their qualifications, sometimes a person just doesn’t fit in. More often than not, the harmony that’s required across a team is more important that one individual’s abilities.

Obviously, the world of celebrity is slightly different, but the fundamentals remain the same. If Cheryl didn’t gel with the rest of the judging panel and the management didn’t feel ‘it was working’, then it’s perfectly reasonable to let her go.

Now think about the UK X Factor situation in a more normal setting. Imagine you’ve just been offered a new job, signed the contract, etc and you suddenly hear on the grapevine that the previous incumbent hasn’t succeeded in her new position.

Now imagine there are rumours at your new company that she’s angling to get her old job back. Can you imagine how pissed off you’d be if she was brought back?

That’s exactly the position that Tulisa from N’Dubz is in currently. Doesn’t sound so hot now, does it?

We get blinded by the glitz, glamour and publicity of the world of TV and celebrity, but ultimately, the way things work there isn’t that different to the rest of the work world.