Two Cents: Two-dimensional TV

What a strange predicament. It's not often a show like The Shire comes along, just plum for an absolute verbal dress-down from yours truly. But, I can't do it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just too good a show! Yep, you read it right here.

Just look at the sheer volume of conversation it's generated. I don’t know how anyone can say The Shire is anything but a cracking success. It's programs like this that makes me realise that our traditional methods of measuring and valuing TV content are nothing short of archaic. It just blows my mind that we in the media industry are still buying and selling media based on ratings alone.
 
The Shire is a prime example of a program whose value is not in ratings, but in “the other stuff”. It’s the kind of content that may not have the biggest audience on face value, but has the ability to make people reach for their devices or turn to the person next to them, and gets splashed across the papers.

For a while now, we have endured the wailing of the television networks as they whinge about “fragmentation this” and “time shift viewing that” and how short-changed and shafted they all are by audience viewing changes. Yet they neglect to realise that “conversation” is something that bypasses all of this. It is something that exists regardless of what time or location in which the program is viewed, and adds a huge amount of value to the series.

This is more relevant to Ten than its rivals. On paper, you could argue that this year has been a tad hit and miss for the network. Yet Being Lara Bingle and The Shire have been responsible for sending the social sphere into a frenzy. These two shows, along with The Voice, are up there for the biggest trending topics this year.

While it can be argued that networks need to pull their fingers out and update their pricing structure, it’s up to the agencies to start educating their clients better and help them see the bigger picture. The traditional buying structure for TV has remained relatively unchanged and will stay this way if clients continue to look at a program's success through such a rigid, two-dimensional lens.