Screening Room
Democratizing TV: The BBC
September 17, 2002
By Stephen Warley
About 15 years ago, Michael Rosenblum left CBS News and bought a small video camera. He started shooting and editing his own pieces and selling them back to the networks. Since then, he has developed a unique and radical vision for television news based on the concept of the "video journalist". He built NY1 News and New York Times Television. Recently, he started a digital film school in downtown Manhattan, called DV Dojo, to train a new generation of documentary filmmakers and television journalists. His idea is not based on technology alone, but rather using technology to liberate television from its physical, as well as psychological limitations. Now he is undertaking the largest deployment of this concept at the BBC. An idea whose time has certainly come.
Freedom to Fail
"About two years ago I thought that television will only really work when we democratize it," says Rosenblum. He argues that the technology of the 1950s made the current organizational structure necessary. It was expensive, cumbersome and only a few people had access to it. He envisions a television world more like print by giving the people the ability to fail, "The reason print is such a rich and powerful medium is because anybody with an idea just kind of cranks it out and television should be the same way." In today's bottom-line obsessed world people aren't allowed to fail. Each newsroom has a limited number of camera crews, so each piece has to make air, "That's way everything on television looks like everything else. It's not because people don't have imagination, it's because the extent of technology prevents us from taking risks." Rosenblum says today's technology will enable people to be more creative because they can fail, "The technology allows us to fail and by being able to fail we can be creative."
A couple of years ago he was approached by the BBC and they were intrigued by his idea, "The concept they really liked was this freedom to fail thing." They had tried employing the video journalist concept in the past with varying degrees of success. Rosenblum's version offered the right mix of technology and philosophy says Fiona Macbeth, Strategic Development Coordinator for BBC Nations & Regions, "We hadn't really hit upon a coherent thought to a joined-up plan as to what this new technology could actually offer you."
New Grammar for TV Journalism
After a year of talks, the BBC hired Rosenblum to do a pilot project. They gave him 55 of their employees from journalists to cameramen to technicians. He isolated them for 3 weeks in a hotel to break down their perception of what television is and introduced a whole new grammar to them, "You have to restructure the way people think." He first taught them how to do basic shots and sound before introducing the journalism says Alex Dunlop, a BBC Video Correspondent, "He built us up slowly to use this new way of working." Rosenblum says resistance to the concept dropped after three days when people got into the physical act of making television, "They are great producers at the BBC, very clever, but they had never touched the equipment, it's like being a writer and never being allowed to touch a pencil." Dunlop tried becoming a video journalist before Rosenblum's training, but says the smaller size of the camera is what makes it possible, "You cannot do what he is advocating with video journalism with a large on-the-shoulder camera."
After the training, the 55 employees were given a 6-month leave of absence from their usual positions to use their newly found skills. The BBC calls them PDPs, Personal Digital Production. Dunlop says that the philosophy and the technology need to be fused together, "It's the two together that work." He says the new process has made his pieces more honest. They have also allowed him to get more exclusives because he can spend more time with his subjects and can gain their trust. Using a smaller camera is less intrusive than having an entire crew. He noted however, there are a lot of trade-offs by using this method. While he prefers the flexibility to get the material he wants, there is less collaboration, "The downside of it is that you don't have someone on location or in the edit suite to bounce ideas off of."
Audience Feedback
To see if their pilot program was heading in the right direction, the BBC did a focus group and the results were very positive says Fiona Macbeth, "The audience felt they were engaging, they felt that the pieces were more memorable." She said they remembered more details about what the characters said and they felt the pieces the video journalists produced were more intimate as opposed to their contemporaries. Macbeth says this technique will make the BBC's news programs more distinctive, "It's our news programs that need some of the qualities of documentary filmmaking. That is actually where we are going to try and make the biggest transition with it over the next three years."
An Investment, Not a Cost-Cutting Measure
"This is definitely not a cost-cutting exercise, it is a major investment," indicates Macbeth pointing to costs involved with training, giving employees time off and buying new equipment. While the new system will cut the costs by 80% on a per piece basis says Rosenblum, it's more than about saving money, "At the same time I think the quality gets enormously enhanced. It's a whole new calculus for television." For example, Alex Dunlop was able to do a story in Manila on the recruitment of Phillippino nurses by the U.K. Health Service because it cost half as much than using a crew and he was able to produce three pieces.
Evolving Television
The greatest challenge facing the BBC is changing the culture and organization to realize the full potential of the video journalists says Macbeth, "They have a very distinct way of working and changing that and achieving this transition in that area is going to be very hard." The BBC will take three years to train one third of their staff, some 600 people, and view the process as an evolution, rather than a revolution. Negotiations with the unions to buy into the idea were difficult. According to Macbeth, they recently reached an agreement after the unions realized it was in their interest to embrace the idea, "We were actually offering quite a good deal, we were in this for the right reasons and we were going to manage it effectively."
Dunlop tells his colleagues and technical employees not to worry, "The idea was basically not to replace camera crews with journalists. It was to expand the output." Dunlop also argues that PDPs give the newsrooms a wider array of options. If there is a breaking story for example, a manager can still send out a crew, but can also send out PDPs to cover other angles of the story, that would not have been covered without them. He also regards himself as having a new kind of specialism and will eventually work in a newsroom where there will be fewer divisions, "I see this video journalism or PDP as a specialism. Instead of separate bubbles in a news station, you have overlapping bubbles. Some people will have one specialism and some will have three." Macbeth recognizes there will have to be a lot of change, but it will be worth it in the end, "As to the newsrooms structures and systems, I think they will change to get bums off seats, to liberate them from processes and to get them to be more creative."
About the Author
Stephen Warley has made a career out of assessing the future direction of television. From producing for CBS News and CNBC to working as a project manager for interactive media agencies like ThirdAge and Osprey Communications, he has gained an insider's view as to where tomorrow's content and business opportunities lie in the video media industries. He is currently an MBA candidate at Fordham University with concentrations in media management and finance.
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