Summary

This project addressed an acknowledged shortage of high-quality case studies of science  television, and especially the convergence of television with digital media. We initiated a collaboration with Einstein TV, a digital channel branded as 'Europe's first science channel', which claimed to challenge conventional science TV with innovative programming. With the aim of establishing a longer-term collaboration, the project conducted an initial case study of the channel.

Einstein PLC’s mission is 'to create a worldwide multi-platform brand dedicated to science, technology and lifelong learning'. Einstein TV, launched in the UK in 2000, provided a continuous rolling programme of short items which aimed to 'intrigue rather than teach', and to match the 'browser profile' of internet and digital TV usage. 

In the event it became clear that financial difficulties at the channel ruled out a longer term collaboration, but this does enable us to offer some unique insights into why such innovation may be so difficult.

The project used a novel combination of methods drawn from both media studies and innovation studies, which entailed detailed analysis of programmes, web-site activity, interviews with channel staff, field notes from regular visits to and contacts with the channel, audience figures, internal documents, consultants’ reports, press coverage of the channel, press/conference coverage and secondary economic analyses of the Digital TV market. Taken together these produced an initial but still innovative case study of science TV within a competitive environment.

Results 

The distinctiveness of the Einstein brand is conveyed largely through the single-genre scheduling and 5-minute format, rather than the programme content, style of address or interactive features.

- Scientific and technology are presented positively in all programmes. 

- Scientific knowledge is presented as accumulative, progressive and inevitable. 

- Competing points of view are only presented in 12% of programmes. 

- The social context of science is mentioned in 25% of the programmes, but usually in passing comments. 

- The viewer is addressed as a non-scientist learner interested in building on prior knowledge of science. It is implied the viewer will benefit as a citizen and/or consumer. 

- Opportunities for interactivity were limited 

- Analysis of the web-site Q&A pages showed that viewers asked questions of fact rather than the ethics or the social context of science. 

- The space and earth strands have a different appearance to the life and technology strands because of the high proportion of bought-in footage. They also tend to have a different tone of audience address. 

There was thus a clear gap between the declared and future intentions of those involved in Einstein to produce innovative products, and their ability to do so. 

Factors influencing the development and output of Einstein TV 

Innovative digital storage of media assets enabled more efficient distribution to broadcasters, customisable output to suit local needs, and efficient and customisable linkages between broadcasts and the web-site. 

Global downturn in advertising revenue, and changes in programme commissioning tax allowances, both resulted in initial cutbacks, especially to programme commissioning and web-site maintenance. 

This damaged the image of Einstein as up-to-date and innovative.

As they began negotiations for carriage on digital platforms, they refined their original target audience; from "the interested amateur" to male ABC1s between 18 and 35, a lucrative segment traditionally hard for advertisers to reach.   This did enable successful marketing to Sky Digital and platforms outside the UK. But  although they succeeded in reaching their audience in the UK, low viewing figures dissuaded advertisers from significant spend. 

They moved from direct contracting with Sky Digital, to the 'Simply' brand, which includes a number of home shopping channels, and after three months off air reappeared as 'Simply Einstein'.  They recognised too late that audience demographics of multi-channel digital TV were skewed away from young male ABC1s, so lower potential advertising revenue reduced income from programme carriers. 

They ignored early focus group findings, conducted no further research in constructing the target audience profile, ignored the female audience, and did not address public interest in the social context and decision-making of science.  Some explanation for these dynamics comes from the channel’s targeting of 'science fans', their reliance on the goodwill of scientist participants, and the extent of back-room innovation prior to innovative broadcasting.

They also deployed an unhappy mix of business models. The target audience  derives from ‘segmented audience’ models; the pitch to shareholders, distributors and advertisers derives from the defrayed-profits aspect of ‘e-commerce’ models; but they ignored the latter’s focus on the user-experience and instead deployed a 'public service' ethos derived from traditional ‘mass audience’ models, despite their desire to innovate in programming.

Arguably, they also transposed the socio-technical dynamics of the World Wide Web onto the Digital TV arena, mistakenly believing the latter would also be characterised by rapid change and word-of-mouth publicity.  Finally, if ‘Digital Entrepreneurship’ is to learn from ‘Internet Entrepreneurship’ (McKelvey, 2001), it must attend to:- multiple levels of analysis of dynamic socio-technical infrastructures, such as Digital TV platforms, the importance of image and reputation at the level of programmes and channels, the professional cultures of production and senior decision-making, understanding the audience, understanding the audience as user, and user involvement.  The last four factors are particularly significant in the case of science broadcasting.

Future Research Priorities 

1. There is clearly potential for future social science collaboration with science broadcasters in the mainstream terrestrial TV channels on the theme of innovative science broadcasting. 

2. However, we have raised serious doubts about the ability of small niche digital channels to succeed with such innovations, whether in science broadcasting or more broadly. Further work is need to clarify this, for instance comparative studies across a range of TV genres. 

3. We have also reinforced a well-known adage from innovation studies: that academics,  organisations and end-users will have different ideas about what is "innovative".

4. The methodology developed in this project, combining multiple levels of analysis with user-participation, could be further developed for a wide variety of research settings. 

 References

McKelvey, Maureen (2001) "Internet entrepreneurship: why Linux might beat Microsoft", in Coombs et al (Eds.) Technology and the Market: Demand, Users and Innovation, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp 177-200.