[by Jemima Kiss] Celia Taylor, director of programmes at Trouble, Challenge, Bravo and Bravo 2, appeared courtesy of a well-edited video presentation from a rather nice villa in Spain. It doesn't take a genius to work out that user content is a growing trend among kids and teens, and that it would therefore be a good fit for a youth channel.
Taylor said Trouble "jumped straight in" with its UGC offering in the form of Homegrown, its UGC website. They commissioned a half-hour UGC TV show, though she admitted that making a TV show from user content seemed a bit old-fashioned, so recently introduced the "My Shout" feature on Sunday mornings which posts a few minutes of "Virtually live" UGC between programmes.
She acknowledged the risk of copyright infringement and said that broadcasters had to be a bit more organised, including taking down problematic content instantly. Conversely, Taylor also added that viewers have not raised any concerns about the exploitation of the content they create.
There's a new focus on working with copyright owners in the form of make-your-own video mash ups for (so far) Oasis, Gwen Stefani and Justin Timberlake. Users were also given material to make their own trailer for the Rocky Balboa film.
"These are the green shoots of how you can work creatively with copyright holders and potentially monetise this stuff. That creative point of view, rather than thinking of making money, has enabled us to lead the way in finding a solution for advertisers and copyright holders. That's a huge achievement in one year."
