On 23 July, the day before the Emmy nominations for 1997 are announced, San Francisco-based Ironlight Digital will launch the official Web site for this year's awards ceremony, slated for 14 September in Pasadena, California.
Last year, Ironlight's Emmycast site clocked 6 million hits in two days. This year's site, says producer Milanie Cleere, will emphasize ushering online viewers behind the scenes at the slick event, gratifying netsurfers' desire to drill behind surfaces and witness works in progress.
On the Net, "Users want to get backstage, get in the orchestra pit, see what the grip is doing," Cleere observes. To accomplish this, the site will feature streaming video from roving cameras, rehearsal shots, interviews, updates in real time, threaded discussions - and even moderated celebrity gossip. During the ceremony, an on-site administrator will pilot the Emmycast cameras using a Web-based interface.
Ironlight principal Ronald Wagner says he hopes the site will be a demonstration that the Net and TV can not only co-exist, they can multiply the total size of the audience with a "cycle of content" that builds interest in both media.
Wagner wants to use the site to create "a parallel experience" to the televised event, mirroring the arc of anticipation in the television industry in the weeks leading up to the ceremony - a marketing opportunity unique to the new medium, he says. "Who's going to buy air time to fire somebody up about an event happening in two months?"
In Wagner's view, too many companies treat the Net as if they know they're supposed to march online and establish a branded presence, when in fact, they don't really want people to visit their sites.
"Many entertainment companies start out saying, 'How can we protect ourselves from the Internet? What can we do so the Net doesn't cannibalize our viewership?'" Wagner says. As the marketing maven of the 1996 merger à trois that fathered Ironlight, Wagner prescribes conceptualizing complementary content for networks and the Net, "adding a new TV to your TV, and a new computer to your computer" by developing programs that play to the strengths of both forms of broadcast.
Ironlight copywriter Ron Levi makes the observation that, beyond complementing TV programming, the Net is transforming it as the two media converge.
"One of the local networks is using the phrase 'the power of information' now to advertise news. Direct access to information is what the Net is about," he says. "As people get used to that, television is going to have to become more intelligent."
