Video interview: Former ITV duo launch TellyLinks.com
The Drum speaks to Jeff Henry, former managing director of ITV Consumer who, alongside former ITV colleague Rob Ovens has launched a new online service which he hopes will promote brands to viewsers during a television programme.
TellyLinks.com is an online service that provides contextual live online links which aim to complement TV viewing and engage with viewsers - a viewer and browser - by offering programme-related content and information stimulated by TV content.
The service launches during Five’s US drama Numb3rs, which it will also sponsor with idents running through at the beginning and end and during commercial breaks with the tagline: ‘You think it…we link it!”
The information conveyed by the service will be synchronised with the show’s content and will also be developed in an iPhone application in the near future.
Jeff Henry, CEO of TellyLinks.com,: “We believe that TellyLinks.com is an innovative new service that offers exciting opportunities to consumers, broadcasters and advertisers. TellyLinks.com aims to bring television viewing and web browsing closer than ever before by offering consumers a chance to simultaneously link the two media together. We believe that viewers and browsers, or viewers, as we like to think of them – will be offered a more personal and engaging experience.”
Henry added that the service was to be launched as a Beta-stage service to the market place.
“The service is an editorial play, rather than a technical one, and offers viewers an opportunity to craft a multitude of exploratory experiences,” he added. “It is like an app for the television, and a precursor to the new generation of integrated TV/ web-enabled sets that are just around the corner. In this respect, TellyLinks.com aims to develop the service in direct response to consumer behaviour.”
Michael Grade, executive chairman of ITV, said that he believed the service to be ‘a truly innovative initiative’ which provided the consumer with extra content related to television output.
The service will launch on Five but is channel and media neutral, meaning that Henry expects to roll it out across all five terrestrial channels in the last quarter of 2010, while the company is also in discussions with interested parties including large trade investors, venture capitalists, traditional publishers and internet media groups.
The public use of the service will be tonight at 10pm alongside Five's Numb3rs.
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Comments
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Wish them all the best, but aren't viewers going to be more likely to see what the crowd is saying about shows via the medium of twitter hashtags? You only need to look to last year's Question Time with Nick Griffin (and more recently the #bbcvirtualrevolution) to see it in action. Still, commercial application interesting. Will make me watch channel 5 tonight anyway :)
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Been trying to access but looks like the site is down. Twitter feed also dead for past half hour so looks like some technical hitches. Shame, would have liked to see this. If nothing else it's a good endorsement for Channel 5 show sponsorship - what a traffic driver!
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