Unable to attend E3, the biggest gaming conference of the year in Los Angeles? Spike TV, the Viacom owned network geared towards males, is broadcasting seventeen hours of coverage, eleven more than last year. E3 has already seen a major social TV announcement involving Xbox’s entertainment growth.
Spike TV doesn’t just use social TV as a marketing or conversation platform. The network’s top programming executives are involved in embedding social TV into every part of the show. The decision to grow their linear offering of E3 was as a result of last year’s, “20 hours of coverage online that set a Viacom record for most streamed event in the company’s history,” as The Wrap reported.
Since their CES coverage in January, the network has fine tuned it’s All Access Live show to go beyond covering the year’s big events. All Access Weekly, hosted by Katie Linendoll airs Thursdays at 12pm for five minutes. The show which provides, “the best source for the latest technology, hottest video games, biggest movies, coolest gadgets, greatest comics, and trending videos” is one of the most innovative short-form linear programs on TV right now. We spoke with Jon Slusser Spike’s SVP of Sports & Multi-platform Programming and Jacob Shwirtz Viacom Media Networks’ social TV mastermind and Director of Social Viewing.
Lost Remote: How has Spike been using social TV recently?
Jon Slusser: Social TV is a real time experience with the audience, and we at Spike, take that way beyond answering Twitter questions. We like to offer a “two-way real time conversation” to take advantage of social media, and to do that you need to be live. To make social TV at Spike, we start developing the show as a multi-platform, social integrated experience right from the start. That means that it’s made to speak with the audience on multiple platforms at the same time. We know our viewers don’t watch TV empty handed anymore. They have their phone or tablet with them while they watch TV, which creates a great opportunity to speak with viewers in new ways. That’s exactly what we are doing, and it’s been a huge win.
LR: What’s All Access Live and how did the show start? How is it unique? Who’s the host?
Slusser: All Access Live isn’t just a show, but also a multiplatform brand. It lives as a weekly TV show, a website, social platform and through huge special events. All Access Live focuses on pop culture, tech, video games and entertainment – the very topics that thrive on social media. Our “All Access” specials are created as multiplatform experiences from conception. We have many hosts for each platform, but some of the key experts are Geoff Keighley, Katie Linendoll, Justine Ezarik (aka iJustine) and many others.
LR: How is Spike incorporating social into the production of its content?
Slusser: We believe that it’s a two way street. Not only should the show affect the social conversation, but the conversation should also affect the show. That’s why we are live and that’s why we integrate social media. As the audience reacts to what we do, we listen. We react to them, which changes the show’s conversation. Closing that feedback loop is what we love to do and the audience can see that. With All Access, we do that with real time polling and sentiment metrics that aggregates the audience’s voice. In addition, we have a social media hub on our stage with a huge touch screen display that lets us watch and comment on the world reaction to what’s going on at that moment. We’re live so we can react to it in real time. We have some screen shots of what the touch screens will look like for “E3 All Access Live.” Let us know if you’d like us to send some your way.
LR: What is Spike doing for E3?
Slusser: Last year’s live E3 multi-platform special was a huge success. It was the number one destination for E3 coverage last year, garnering more than 10 million combined online and on-air viewers, and was also the largest live streaming event in Viacom history.