This document summarizes an experiment by the ABC called #7DaysLater, which produces a weekly television comedy show created through audience participation on social media. Each week, the audience provides ideas for the show's title, genre, location and other elements via Twitter and Facebook. The show is then written and produced in just 7 days to incorporate the audience's suggestions. The document discusses the challenges and opportunities of this experiment, including growing the audience, cutting through the noise on social media, and developing new talent. It also reviews literature on public service broadcasting and how its values could apply to digital media like social TV.

1. Audience Participation on
National Cultural Policy: Co-
creating television comedy with
#7DaysLater
Jonathon Hutchinson, University of Sydney
@dhutchman
International Association of Media and Communication Researchers (IAMCR), Hyderabad 2014

5. “radical decentralization, radical trust, participation
instead of publishing, users as contributors, rich user
experience, the long tail, the web as a platform, control
over one’s own data, remixing data, collective
intelligence, attitudes, better software by more users,
play, undetermined user behaviour”
(Fuchs, 2014: 32)

6. exploitation of free labour (Terranova, 2004),
blogging as a practice is cynical and narcissistic (Lovink, 2008)
Web 2.0 users are more passive users
than active creators
(van Dijck, 2009) social media
manipulates and
constructs social
connections (van Dijck,
2013)

7. Social TV
“the interactions among other viewers and
between viewers, the characters, and the
producers of the show enabled by the ‘second-
screen’ practice”
(Giglietto and Selva, 2014: 260)

8. Social TV
“a metaphorical ‘watercooler’ in the cloud, but
one where the watercooler conversations take
place instantly, rather than at work the following
morning”
(Harrington et al. 2013: 405)

9. Image: ABC, CC BY NC

10. “the application of the
principles of universality of
availability, universality of
appeal, provision for
minorities, education of the
public, distance from vested
interests, quality
programming standards,
program maker
independence, fostering of
the public sphere”
PSB Reithian values:
(Cunningham, 2013: 62)

11. “it is better to understand the ABC and SBS as
public service media organizations, rather than
public service broadcasters”
“The ABC and SBS have the
potential to be content
innovators in the provision of
news and information in the
ways that utilise UCC (user-
created content) strategies”
Flew et al., 2008: 2

12. “Communications Minister
Stephen Conroy has also
announced the ABC and SBS
charters will be updated to
take into account their online
and digital content.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-12/conroy-announces-media-reforms/4567550

13. #7DaysLater is a program “…
taking comedy to the scary
arena of interactive
storytelling where the
audience gets to write the
brief via social media for each
weekly episode that will air
just seven days later on
ABC2”
(ABC, 2013).

14. Challenges
Opportuniti
es
The Audience
Visibility
Cut Through
Growing Digital
Experiment
Think Titles
Invest in up & coming
talent
Richard Huddleston
Supervising Executive Producer, ABC TV

15. The Work
Pipeline

17. 1.@7DaysLaterTV
2.@Daley_Pearson
3.@HarrisonTheFan
4.@MWhalan
5.@henry_and_aaron
6.@bajopants
7.@ABC2
8.@WASHINGTONx
9.@JordanRasko
10. @tomandalex
1.#7DaysLater
2.#qanda
3.#ZandA
4.#spooky
5.#Animation
6.#FlightoftheConchords
7.#Western
8.#Hawaii
9.#ggtv
10. #zombie

18. “I eventually want to end up writing
and producing for film and television
and thought this would be just a good
experience to start with. I mainly have
a background in writing and directing
for theatre and handling social media
(as a job), so this was the perfect
crossover.”
@HarrisonThe Fan

20. “PSB 2.0 becomes a media policy
instrument (Syversten, 1999)
based on a set of normative
values that aims to fulfil the
democratic, social and cultural
needs of the society by
transferring traditional PSB
ethos online” (Brevini, 2013, p.
31). Four normative criteria:
citizenship
universality
quality
trust
PSB 2.0

21. PSB 2.0
It is problematic, beyond the economical
perspective, to introduce PSB 2.0 through
these criteria for reasons including liberal
versus social democracy or access and
retrievability via differing internet
protocols in different countries

23. Jonathon Hutchinson
jonathon.hutchinson@sydney.edu.au