Posted by Kevin Anderson

UPDATE: I just got this message from Damien Marchi, a Senior Producer with Streampower. He developed these 8 commandments in a thesis on cross media projects he wrote before he joined the company. They are great rules to work by Damien. Thanks for the e-mail, and let me know about that blog when it launches.

Dominique Delport with Streampower is just giving a really interesting presentation about a cross-platform interactive television programme on France5, Cult TV.

He said that 30 to 40% of the programme is video content generated by the viewers. Wow.

He just laid out his 8 Commandments of Cross Media production:

Commandment 1 Interact with the show. Give the power to the audience.

Maybe obvious to say today, but they really want to have the control. They can see whether it is real or false, Dominique said.

The agenda of the programme is driven by the viewers. Viewers vote on topics all week long. They set the agenda for the next week.

And he says that public TV was not particularly focused on its viewers. (EBU is a pan-European group of public broadcasters, which the BBC is a part of)

Commandment 2 Increase users’ stickiness. Extend life length of the show. Some audience watching show on TV and on the web.

And be aware of how the audience wants to communicate. Originally, they thought SMS would be the way the audience would communicate, but their younger audience was using e-mail and video blogging (using webcams) more.

Commandment 3 Give users access exclusive access not seen on television. Half hour is spent with guests after show, and web users are given specific musical bonus.

Commandment 4 iIncrease user loyalty. Work so that your viewers recommend the show. They have many contests and challenges organised on the website

Commandment 5 Continue the show on the web.

Commandment 6 Enhance the watching experience so that it follows the viewer whenever and wherever they are. The programme features video chat with guests.

Commandment 7 Promote the programme with P2P, social networks. Viral, word of mouth marketing.

Market the show with the hosts of fan forums. Invite key members of online social forums on the programme. Target underground activity and get the maximum number of people involved. It will get the show even more known and spoken about. target underground activity. get maximum number of people involved

Commandment 8 Increase revenues. This was the very last objective of public tv but many public broadcasters are moving to dual-source revenue streams with their public support being supplemented with advertising and cross-promotional revenue.

But he noted some of the challenges of creating this programme, one that brings together web cam contributors from around the world.

They have a production teamo of 40 people for one programme. A poverty of riches for most organisations.

And Dominique said that the clash of interactive and TV cultures provided challenges. And he said:

TV needs are not the same as interactive and web needs. And TV always comes first. The web always comes second.

I wonder if this will always be the case?