Powering Peston with UGC & Audience Participation

Challenge

ITV’s Peston Show sought to incite dynamic viewer conversation around UK politics and feature audience participation directly on a large studio screen. The challenge was to integrate a constant stream of user-generated content (UGC) from Twitter into their production workflow in real time, ensuring all content was relevant and properly moderated, while maintaining the broadcast quality standards fans expect.

Solution

We provided a cloud-based solution that integrated seamlessly into the show’s production workflow. Working with ITV’s touchscreen software provider, our team enabled the social producer to monitor and select relevant comments using the hashtag #Peston. The system’s content moderation features allowed producers to filter out trolls and inappropriate content with ease. The selected comments were then pushed as real-time broadcast graphics to a large in-studio touchscreen, allowing Robert Peston and his co-host to highlight and discuss the most interesting questions and opinions from the audience. This use of interactive media turned a one-way broadcast into a lively debate while extending the show’s organic reach.

The system’s content moderation features allowed producers to filter out trolls and inappropriate content with ease. The selected comments were then pushed as real-time broadcast graphics to a large in-studio touchscreen, allowing Robert Peston and his co-host to highlight and discuss the most interesting questions and opinions from the audience. This use of interactive media turned a one-way broadcast into a lively debate while extending the show’s organic reach.

Results

The partnership successfully leveraged social media to drive a high level of fan engagement and conversation, making the audience a central part of the show’s narrative, generating results such as:

• Producers were able to efficiently and confidently deliver appropriate audience comments to the big screen.
• The show’s social media team directly engaged with their 60,000+ followers, gathering real-time sentiment on political topics.
• The show successfully demonstrated that viewers are eager to engage with their favourite programs on social networks to influence the conversation.