Scotland: High road to the digital age

The Scottish TV landscape is rapidly being transformed as indies and broadcasters embrace digital technology and new funding sources begin to make an impact. Michael Burns reports. From STV’s recent 2,500-hour content deal with YouTube to Scottish Enterprise’s ‘Interactive Scotland’ funds, aimed at kick-starting the digital industry, Scotland appears to be embracing the digital age with gusto. “There’s no doubt we’re seeing more activity and more diversity in the digital media sector in Scotland,” says Carol Sinclair, managing director of TRC media, an independent charity in Glasgow that facilitates training and events. “What strikes you right away is the high level of ambition and innovation.” A prime mover in this area is the Digital Media Industry Advisory Group, chaired by Stuart Cosgrove, director of nations and regions at Channel 4. Founded last year from within the industry, its purpose is to lobby the government for help to make the Scottish digital media scene more vibrant and double the value of sector revenues to £6.3bn by 2012. The formation of the group (a joint venture between the games, digital and TV industries) resulted in a strategy report, Digital Inspiration, which was published in December (see www.digitalinspiration.org.uk). “The focus here was on how Scotland can have more interactive platform owners,” explains Cosgrove. “It looked very much at the creative value chain and was about improving Scotland’s place in digital creativity.” This ‘self-help’ approach epitomises a newly positive feeling in a diverse and formerly fragmented sector. Key players across the broadcast and digital industries in Scotland have overcome suspicions of cross-media poaching and are increasingly coming up with ways of working together. Another driver for the sector is Interactive Scotland, a Scottish Enterprise initiative to help develop solutions, services, products and applications in the digital media arena. It offers market research, networking events and business and product development advice - as well as supporting the recommendations of the Digital Inspiration report. It also offers to hook up Scottish companies with the decision-makers at global companies for free. At STV, meanwhile, the STV Player, the YouTube partnership and the STV News iPhone app are part of the STV Anywhere project, which aims to drive distribution of STV content and services on other platforms, mobile devices and IPTV. “At the heart of this project is the idea that our audiences should be able to consume STV material on their terms - where, when and how they want to,” says Alistair Brown, head of digital at STV, who predicts the project will also encompass other platforms. “We are looking to expose our content to as wide an audience as possible, and to monetise the ad inventory generated from these audiences.” As well as committing to increased network TV commissions from Scotland, the BBC is in the process of redefining, refocusing and improving its online offering. “The heart of the proposal is to do fewer things, better,” says Ian Small, head of public policy and corporate affairs at BBC Scotland. “To ensure Scottish interactive indies are a full part of this, BBC Scotland will work with networks such as Interactive Scotland to understand Scotland’s specific areas of expertise, to broker relationships, and to support and develop companies on the way to becoming BBC suppliers.” Interactive independents There are also mechanisms in place to help Scottish indies move into the interactive sector. Most prominent is the Digital IP fund from Scottish Enterprise and new body Creative Scotland (formed through the merger of Scottish Screen and the Scottish Arts Council), which will match funding for commercial investment in a digital product up to a cap of £375,000. Shed Media Scotland, the Glasgow-based offshoot of super-indie Shed, is about to deliver its first digital project with the help of the fund, after opening a year ago. Initially commissioned in 2009 from documentary indie and charitable trust CTVC, Being Victor is a live-action teen drama that operates on several digital platforms and received match funding from Digital Media IP Fund to double its budget to £500,000. Launching on MTV Europe, after a 10-week online blog sets the scene and provides a back story, the series is filmed and based in Glasgow and Shed also worked with the Digital Design Studio - Shed’s neighbour at its base in Glasgow’s The Hub office complex. “The BBC targets for ‘out of London’ were the catalyst for us being here, but we want to do lots of other things as well,” says Margaret Scott, head of business development at Shed Media Scotland. She also reveals that among other digital projects in development, the company is pitching to take Waterloo Road online. Anne Mensah, the BBC’s head of independent drama and head of drama for BBC Scotland, says she is extremely interested in interactive, non-linear narrative for drama, an area currently being explored by Tern Digital. The company’s multiplatform drama concept The Dymaxion will combine a TV drama series, an animated broadband mini-series and an online augmented reality gaming (ARG) experience. “We’re all about putting story-based content on different platforms,” says Tern Digital executive producer Simon Meek. “A huge breakthrough for us recently is our conversations with Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox to put content on their platforms. “For a TV company to be having open discussions with these companies’ development studios about what we can bring to their platforms is a huge step forward.” Keo North, another Scottish indie offshoot, based at Film City in Glasgow, has recently added three more staff to its digital wing to further develop its fl agship online project, Landshare. “The Keo Digital team are in touch with some amazing people all around the country that from a television development aspect I wouldn’t otherwise be tapping into,” says Craig Hunter, head of Keo North and the company’s executive producer for specialist factual. “There’s a huge drive to make the digital side of things really work in Scotland. It doesn’t just encourage companies already working in digital, it also gives companies like us the ability to take that leap of faith to invest in digital.”