We sat down at Somethin’ Else a couple of years back, and asked if there was anyone, anywhere, who thought that ‘talent,’ as a business or a commodity, is the same as it was in the days when @richardpbacon (1,303,228 followers on Twitter) was simply Richard Bacon.
We realised that, weirdly, the answer was “Yes.” All talent agencies and many broadcasters were acting like nothing had changed since a talent deal meant a cigar-fuelled rant down the phone to Bryan Cowgill in the newly-built Television Centre.
We thought we could serve our clients on both sides better, so we’re building the first internet-age talent agency.
But what’s different, exactly? And why should broadcasters care?
The main change is the direct relationship between audiences and talent. What we all call “the media” is itself being disintermediated — according to Tweetminster, a media organisations — BBC News — is the leading media influencer on Twitter; another (the Guardian newspaper) is second. But Alistair Campbell is 4th, India Knight 6th and Krishnan Guru-Murthy is 7th. People; people with agents. One wonders how Channel 4 News feels about this: we’d suggest they should be over the moon.
If you’re a broadcaster that sees this as a problem, the way round it is to co-opt, to collaborate with, individuals who manage their own social personalities. To create true cross-platform projects or augment broadcast-only projects in order to make programmes that work on broadcast but also in people’s personal side channels such as Facebook or their personal blog.
Of course, the next generation of talent has an even more interesting story unfolding, with even greater questions (and opportunities!) for broadcasters. The route from “bedroom presenter” to TV or radio used to go via local stations, which have become entirely eviscerated by network programming and difficult business cases. These days, wannabe broadcasters do it themselves — they’ll make mini-formats to showcase themselves.
The best ones aren’t necessarily trying to showcase themselves at all; this is the most challenging sector for old-school broadcasters (this is big money for a handful of people, too — check out the Independent’s “YouTube Rich List”). People starting out here are the ones Somethin’ Else’s talent department is the most interested in. Guys like Alex Day’s output is just an expression of his personality; we’re going to help him make a lasting career out of it (if he wants to). To do this means having a genuine, profound understanding of how all this stuff works.
Luckily, this is what we do at Somethin’ Else — for example, we make multiplatform work for C4 like www.playsuperme.com, and guys on our agency like Amazing Phil are making an impression on C4 Education’s fantastic Battlefront. No-one can claim to have worked it all out. But we think we’re getting there.
