Novel Engagement

Every content producer wants as many people as possible to be aware of their content. In order to hold people’s attention in this age of information overload and gnat-like attention spans, content producers have needed to create novel ways to keep bringing people back. Sometimes that’s smaller bites of content delivered on YouTube, such as the case with the SyFyNetworks opting to deliver a new Battlestar Galactica (BSG) spinoff series “Blood and Chrome” strictly online once per week in 12-18 minute episodes, prior to a full run on the cable network and DVD sales set to begin in February 2013.

This serves a great purpose for fans of the BSG franchise and allows the network to test the potential impact and audience reception of the newly expanded franchise universe.

--Machinima Prime---Battlestar Galactica Blood & Chrome +7 million total views

Episode 1- 2.8 million

Episode 2- 946k

Episode 3 & 4- 974k

Episode 5 & 6- 975k

Episode 7 & 8- 625k

Episode Finale- 663k

Syfy programming president Mark Stern touted the multi-platform concept as a great way to grow the fan-favorite franchise:

"With its top-notch storytelling, pulse-pounding action, and cutting-edge visual effects, Blood & Chrome is the perfect extension of the Battlestar Galactica universe. We are thrilled to see this hotly-anticipated event premiere on Machinima, an online network that is unparalleled in its delivery of high-class digital content to millions of viewers."

….uhh, yeah; over 7 million to date actually. That’s a pretty amazing amount of consumer impressions prior to the official start of the series on cable. Perhaps a bit more risky due to production costs, but the webseries was very well done and really the producers of BSG: B&C at Syfy couldn’t lose because they historically have launched the Battlestar Galactica franchise spinoffs with a 2-hour special to kick things off. This grouping of webisodes equal a 2-hour special, and it’s the one that they’ll be releasing in early February. So all they have really done is begin to stoke the flames of attention that surrounds the BSG franchise a few months earlier, thus building audience attention for an all-in run for as many seasons as possible.

The act of building consumer engagement and controlling audience attention is changing, and has had to continually evolve at pace with the growth of the Internet platform as the functionality is becoming more capable everyday at handling various functions that were once reserved strictly for TV or Print.