Report: UK Web TV market

UK Web Shows Now is the latest report from online television research specialist Futurescape.

The report analyses 50 shows in late 2007 – 2008: 30 completed Web shows, five made-for-mobile, three feature films and another 12 Web shows in development. The shows were made by 45 production companies and broadcasters.

Big Balls Films, Endemol and Conker Media has each made, or been commissioned for, at least four productions out of the 45 Web shows and feature films in the report.

“What is particularly striking is how film production company Big Balls has successfully executed a business and creative strategy of expanding out from music videos and television commercials into online comedy and drama, where it competes on equal terms with much larger and well-established indies,” said Colin Donald, director, Futurescape.

In just 12 months, Big Balls has rapidly progressed from producing KateModern to shooting international drama Somebody Else’s Phone for Nokia.

The productions have not only become larger, but have also broadened the Web show audience. While most shows target trendy teens and young adults, the romantic comedy Katie & Co, made for Jacob’s Creek, aims to reach readers of The Mail On Sunday in their thirties and forties.

The shows have a variety of interactive features. The Nokia drama includes a competition for viewers to meet characters in real life, an approach to audience participation pioneered in KateModern. Katie & Co lets the viewers vote on three alternate endings for the finale.

Endemol is similarly picking up multiple commissions and making productions with significant interactivity and filmic quality.

These include the Web series with the highest disclosed budget, the £1m global reality travel show The Gap Year, on Bebo. The travellers are Bebo members and Bebo viewers interact by commenting on the travellers’ adventures and the show itself.

Sci-fi thriller Kirill has been shot by another filmmaking company, Pure Grass Films, in which Endemol is an investor. Commercially, the productions are attracting either multiple sponsors, 14 for The Gap Year, or major brands fully funding production, such as MSN for Kirill.

All3Media’s Conker Media is consolidating its position in teen and young adult programming. It has a three show R&D deal with BBC Switch, to research user trends and new technology, that has the potential for creating breakthrough formats.

One such show in development is a mobile soap for teens, TxtME. It is meanwhile creating another original online format, Hollyoaks show-within-a-show Runners, for Channel 4.