Transmedia or Not Transmedia

Today’s contestant on Transmedia or Not transmedia is…

An Experiment In Transmedia: Fox Show To Be Viewed On iPad Before TV

The first episode will be inserted via DVD in New York and Los Angeles subscriber copies of the October issue of Vanity Fair, as well as in newsstand copies in the New York area – reaching about 400,000 readers. It will also run on Vanity Fair’s iPad application – it’s not yet estimated how many viewers it will reach on the iPad, given the application’s relatively recent launch. Fox will also support the show’s premiere with traditional media, via print ads in the October Vanity Fair.

So, the big experiment in transmedia is that the same episode that will be viewed on TV is being recorded to a DVD and inserted into a magazine and, for people who have an iPad and the magazine’s iPad app, they can also view it on their iPad.

We’ve got TV! We’ve got DVD! We’ve got Magazines! We’ve got iPad! It’s gotta be transmedia, right?

Bzzt! Wrong.

All we have is a video of an episode of a tv show. We have a video of the episode on DVD (inserted into magazines), and the same video downloadable onto an iPad and, of course, viewable on tv. But, there has been no actual movement or interaction between platforms and the story isn’t being told on multiple platforms. You, the viewer, aren’t getting different things in different places. What you are getting is the exact same thing just delivered to you through a whole bunch of different media outlets. It’s like a book – whether you borrow it from the library, buy it at a local retailer, or order it online, you are still getting the same book.

And, to hit the point home, just read the article…

Overall, Fox’s intention was for the previews to deliver an exclusive experience, and to create the perception that this is a ’special’ show – something that needs to be watched in order to be enjoyed and understood.

It is just a show. Of course, this is a special show. You will need to watch it in order to enjoy and understand it. Unlike all those tv shows you don’t have to watch to enjoy or understand.

But! There is hope! The show is a prime time soap set against the backdrop of big Texas oil. It’s a completely unique concept that may or may not spawn card games, board games, beer, and huge parties where young impressionable minds all over the land learned the art of betting… on, of all things, who killed some oil baron. (why, yes, my mother was obsessed, the card game was actually pretty fun, the board game was just monopoly, I was too young to drink the beer, and the party was still a blast. and, no, there is no evidence that my friends and I dressed up as some famous cheerleading squad and did a dance routine to the theme song during the aforementioned party and, without evidence, this did not ever happen.)

Now, if the show does become quite the thing and all sorts of crazy merchandise begins appearing, we might have transmedia (of the franchise sort, which in my world is still debatable as transmedia and is, more, a, um, franchise… crazy, I know). But we are not talking about hypotheticals. Nor are we talking about some 1980s television show. We are talking about Lone Star and whether or not showing the first episode via dvd in magazines and downloadable via iPad apps is transmedia. And, the answer is…

NOT TRANSMEDIA