Bravo recently began offering a Web-based video "mash-up" application in association with its fashion-themed reality TV show, "Project Runway." The executive in charge of the application, SVP of marketing Jason Klarman, recently spoke to [itvt]'s Tracy Swedlow about the response to the app, about Bravo's plans to offer video "mash-ups" in association with other programs, about the importance of allowing viewers creative freedom in their mash-ups, and more.
[itvt]: What is your role at Bravo?
Klarman: I'm SVP of marketing. I oversee all our on-air and off-air creative, our brand strategy, and our presence on the Web. That would include BravoTV.com and our two broadband TV channels: OutzoneTV.com, which is the first gay and lesbian broadband channel, and which is a partnership with Gay.com and the people at Planet Out; and BrilliantButCanceled.com, which is a TV-enthusiast's site and whose name is self-explanatory. One thing that is pretty interesting that we just launched is an interactive game, called "Fall Season Death Watch," where you get to play network executive and decide which shows live and which shows die.
[itvt]: Bravo recently started offering an online "mash-up" application in association with "Project Runway." How has that been working out for you?
Klarman: Well, last time I checked, people had created more than 15,000 mash-ups on our site. We hadn't realized we would get so many of them. We'd like to be able to display more of them: at the moment, only 20 of them can be displayed at a time. We'd like to do something like Apple's iTunes, so that you can see the top 100. We'd like to do this because the vast majority of them, as it happens, are really funny and good. I love the community that something like this creates. I love the richness of it: everybody comes with a different point of view. If you're a fan of "Project Runway," they're all worth at least a look. It's a little like a dialogue the viewers have back to us and with one other. It's sort of a more sophisticated version of a message board. It gives you their take on the show. I actually see it as another art form. It reminds me of the way that rap music takes something that already exists and makes something entirely new out of it. It's really interesting to allow viewers that degree of creative freedom. I feel it's very much in accord with what our brand is about--what the channel's about.
[itvt]: How did Bravo come up with the idea of offering mash-ups in association with "Project Runway"?
Klarman: To be honest, what happened was that the head of our channel, Lauren Zalaznick, just called me up one day and said, "This is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. We should do something like this." As I recall, she sent me a link to the mash-ups she was looking at, and I was, like, "This is really cool! This is absolutely perfect for us." This was actually quite a while back--none of this stuff ever happens overnight. It's got to have been at least a year ago.
The reason it was so perfect for us is that we're very interested in user-generated content and in interactivity. How I see mash-ups is as another level of interactivity--it's one step more sophisticated than message boards. It's another way of getting people vested in the shows and in the channel, itself. It takes them beyond the simple idea of "Oh, I love Tim Gunn. He's really cool," to actually creating a video that's a homage to Tim. It's turned out to be so successful, we're going to roll it out for nearly all of our key shows. "Top Chef" is our next show up, and we're going to roll it out for that. We just love it.
[itvt]: Which other shows are you planning to offer your mash-up application with?
Klarman: We'll also roll it out for a show called "Top Designer." We are more than 90% likely to roll it out for "The Real Housewives of Orange County." We're looking at a number of different shows--though I don't think it's right for every show.
[itvt]: Presumably not for "Inside The Actor's Studio"…
Klarman: No. I think that "Inside The Actor's Studio" is not something I'd like to see cut up and pasted together in a different way. I think there's a certain reverence for that show: in a way, it's the one place where actors actually sit down and talk about the acting craft--not about who they're sleeping with or what their latest film is. On the other hand, even though "Inside The Actor's Studio" wouldn't be my first choice to receive the mash-up treatment, I'm not saying that we wouldn't look at it down the road. However, I think that contest reality shows are the most appropriate for this kind of thing. "Runway" and "Chef" are particularly appropriate, because they have all of these different characters and all of these key catchphrases you can use in mash-ups, such as "Carry on," "Auf Wiedersehen, " "You're out," and so on.
Actually, "Project Runway's" catchphrases are so memorable that we're turning them into ringtones. If you go to the BravoTV.com site, you can download a ringtone of Heidi Klum saying, "Are you in or out? In or out? In or out?"
[itvt]: You mentioned earlier that you've already gotten 15,000 different mash-ups since the app went live. How many people are viewing the mash-ups?
Klarman: We've streamed hundreds of thousands of these mash-ups. Hundreds of thousands. People are passionate about this show, and we're also lucky in that Bravo attracts an upscale, technology-savvy audience. It's actually amazing to see the reaction that we've gotten. It's been huge. I would say that we've streamed in the neighborhood of 3-400,000 to date--and we only launched the app at the end of July or the beginning of August; so it's only been available for four or five weeks. That's a lot for just a few weeks.
[itvt]: How have you been promoting the mash-up application to viewers?
Klarman: Well, we get literally millions of visitors to our Web site. So if you go to BravoTV.com, it's on the "Project Runway" Web site. We've also promoted it via on-air promotions. So, during "Runway," we'll make an announcement along the lines of, "You're watching an all-new 'Project Runway.' Go online and create your own video mash-up."
[itvt]: Could you tell us a little about the infrastructure of the application?
Klarman: This isn't the area I cover, but it's basically a mixture of Flash, PHP and XML technologies.
[itvt]: One thing that's noticeable about Bravo's Web site is that it seems to have attracted a very active community…
Klarman: We get literally thousands and thousands of comments on our blogs and message boards. In fact, because we've gotten such an amazing response, we're actually looking to put somebody in place to oversee our community--our message boards and all of that stuff. Their job would be to keep track of discussions and to keep a dialogue going with our users.
[itvt]: Another thing I've noticed is that a lot of the comments about "Project Runway," for example, are pretty catty, to say the least--as are some of the mash-ups…
Klarman: If you really, truly want to have an interactive community that really feels empowered and emboldened to participate, then you have to take the bad with the good. I don't think there's anything that's that bad. There's certainly nothing off-color--we don't allow foul language or any of that kind of stuff to happen. Or at least we do our best to monitor it. But if somebody wants to post that they hate one of the contestants, or--better still--if they want to express that feeling by putting together a video from the various pieces we've given them, then fine! That's just another voice heard from. We try to give people as much freedom as possible, because I think users can smell a lack of integrity very easily. If we really want them to come back to the site, and to feel that they are part of something, you have to give them freedom. You have to give in order to get. And so far, it seems to be working: we're getting a great response.
URL: Bravo TV
Originally Published: September 21, 2006 in [itvt] Issue 6.95
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