Playlists of the future 2 – TV singles and albums

What if my visual feed was similar to my audio feed – the way music is played on radio. What if media organisations had playlists that I subscribed to?

Maybe the visual channel that I will tune into will be made up of four to five minute vignettes. Longer than traditional previews, they’d be excerpts from dramas, comedy shows and documentaries. Entertaining and stimulating on their own, but with the option for me to wait for the next ‘track’ to come along, or for me to choose to see the rest of the play, film, documentary, documentary series or comedy show. Like singles on a radio station, I would expect high- medium- and low-rotation pieces. They could be designed to be re-watched.

Movies, TV shows and documentaries usually include ‘set-pieces.’ These are the bits that you talk about afterwards without reference to the plot. The sections excerpted in the better review shows: ‘Remember the bit when they were trapped in the trash compactor and the monster with the one eye attacked them?!’ ‘What about that bit when he had to stab her in the heart with the adrenaline needle! Wow’ ‘I didn’t cry when she told that story about how her owner forgot about her when she grew up and left her to be sold by the side of the road… it just got a little dusty in the room!’ These are the set-pieces that could be included in a visual station feed. Each could have simple intro to explain the stakes for those who hadn’t seen the source film or show. If you register that you have seen the source, the big moments from the second half could also be included in the playlist.

It may be that not everyone will want to pay the full £6 for the 2 hour film, or £18 for the complete 24 part series. They might want to pay a little less for a set piece or two. Just as people today pick the best tracks from an album as opposed to the whole work.

Imagine if short films and animations could get included in the mix. What would a TV channel be then – a filter to prevent you being taken over by the massive flow of content out there? What about shared experience?

We’ll see.