Berlin, 12 September 2011 – The results of the Eurovision TV Lab were announced today during the Eurovision Creative Forum, a conference on formats and innovation for public service broadcasters, organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)*.

The TV Lab**, originally created in 2009 by Dutch public broadcaster NPO has been developed into an international project called the Eurovision TV Lab and has received international attention as it is the first time audiences can vote on which programmes reach TV screens. This year viewers in Germany, the Netherlands, and Slovenia used social networks to choose which TV formats would be developed into TV series***.

NPO created a special measuring tool to assess the impact of each programme format called “TV Lab Buzz”. This pilot tool allows interactivity while viewing the programmes to assess audience reactions. It measures and brings together information on tweets, retweets, Hyves (Dutch social network), “likes” on Facebook, website hits, ratings and visits on i-Player. Eighty per cent of the people that used the tool were under 40. As many as 24 pilots were viewed on Nederland 3 in the Netherlands. The highest rated programmes are as follows:

1.   Caribbean Combo (8.2)
2.   Renkematv (8.1)
3.   Gajes/Restart (7.9)
4.   Rambam (7.7)
5.   Not so lonely planet, NOS op 3 en Truman (7.5)
6.   Red Sonja (7.4)
7.   Kamer 9, German Angst (7.2)
8.  U hoort nog van ons, Elements (7.0)

Five to six of these programmes will be developed into TV series.

TV Lab Buzz will be used next year by the other Eurovision TV Lab broadcasters who will take part once again: ZDF (Germany), RTVE (Slovenia) and VRT (Belgium).   “Many other public broadcasters have shown an interest in joining the Eurovision TV Lab in 2012,” says Bettina Brinkmann, Head of EBU Arts, Entertainment & Fiction.

She continues, “This is only the beginning – especially for younger audiences who want their views to be heard. We can obtain an increasingly clear picture of what people want to see on TV.”

Overall reactions to the Eurovision TV Lab were high in all participating countries. 17,000 voters took part on the ZDF TV Lab website. Twitter, blogs and Facebook were the key drivers for the ZDF TV Lab spreading online. Ten pilots were viewed and Teddy’s Show won. In the coming week the programmes that will be developed into series will be selected.

In Slovenia, 10 pilot programmes were broadcast and there was a huge response on the social networks, e-mail and by telephone.

Note to editors: 

*About the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)
The EBU serves 85 national media organizations in 56 countries in and around Europe. It represents its Members and promotes the values and distinctiveness of public service media in Europe and around the world. The Eurovision and Euroradio networks deliver news, sports, events and music to EBU Members and other media organizations. Services to Members range from legal advice, technical standardization and development to coproduction and exchange of quality European content.  For more information about the EBU: www.ebu.ch and www.eurovision.net/

** The TV Lab initiative started out in the Netherlands in 2009 and was created by channel manager at Nederland 3, Roek Lips. It began as a theme week on Nederland 3, in which producers and creators were given the opportunity to showcase new programmes and so that they could be judged by TV critics and audiences. As a result eight programmes that were broadcast during TV Lab 2009 have become a regular feature on Nederland 3.

***VRT (Belgium) will broadcast their pilot programmes at a date to be announced.