TV shows that integrate phone content?

April 12, 2019 8:39 AM

Can you recommend some TV shows that do a good job integrating smartphone content with the show as it progresses?

I'm not talking about supplementary static website info you can look at while you watch the show - I'm talking about (I would gues) a live TV show for which there's synched content that either comments on what's happening on screen, or includes plot information or "off screen" scenes that organically add to the experience of consuming the show.

Seems like sports would be the natural use case for this but there are obviously a lot of creative possibilities with other programming forms too. Does this exist?

posted by stupidsexyFlanders to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

The term you may be looking for is second screening.
As I understand it this is biggest with sports.
posted by k8t at 8:42 AM on April 12, 2019

Breaking Bad and the first few seasons of Better Call Saul did this. Trivia, callback info, polls during the commercial break, etc.
I think they dropped it for the last BCS season, maybe nobody (except me) was using it.

(on re-reading the question, maybe this is the kind of thing you're explicitly not asking about?)
posted by jozxyqk at 8:51 AM on April 12, 2019 [2 favorites]

You can see this to some extent with competition reality shows, as well -- live voting widgets, streaming chat, contests, background info on performers or songs, things like that.

If you google "second screen experience" and the name of different shows you might care about, you will see a lot of press releases and other coverage of these types of Apps.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:19 AM on April 12, 2019

The Walking Dead did (maybe still does?) this.
posted by Grither at 9:23 AM on April 12, 2019

Would live tweeting from the cast and crew fit the bill? Apparently the practice started with Scandal. I can't speak to who's doing it exceptionally well these days though.
posted by natabat at 10:20 AM on April 12, 2019

Would Soderbergh's Mosaic count? Unfortunately the app and its related content have all been taken down, even though the show only came out in January 2018.
posted by bcwinters at 10:48 AM on April 12, 2019

The Norwegian TV series Skam. The series itself was posted in small segments on the web, which were also assembled into weekly episodes and broadcast on the channel NRK3. Each character in the series has accounts on Instagram and other social networks, and viewers could follow these accounts and see the characters interact in real time.

Skam has now seen remakes in many different markets including a US version currently streaming on Facebook Watch.
posted by mbrubeck at 1:04 PM on April 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

Another one that just occurred to me. It's off the air now, but the Million Second Quiz had this whole offline universe, with the quiz continuing even when the show itself was off the air, and people could play along to try to win their own way onto the show. It was kind of confusing and not terribly successful, but the offline component was substantial.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:25 PM on April 12, 2019

This was one of the touted features of the Nintendo Wii U before it came out. The functionality existed a little bit - the Wii U screen would show you trivia about shows you were watching - but it never got off the ground. They called it TVii. It allowed people watching the same show to draw pictures and send them to each other or even draw over the TV image.
posted by tacodave at 2:44 PM on April 12, 2019