Last night, Diffusion PR brought together four broadcasting figureheads to discuss whether social media would be the saviour of traditional television. The overarching conclusion was that the two are intrinsically linked – driving the success of one another, and that nowadays you can’t plan a new programme without considering how social media will complement it.

Adam Gee, cross-platform commissioning editor for Channel 4, said that the relationship was more symbiotic than separate, as to move beyond ‘chit chat’ online, there has to be content or inspiration to drive long-term interest and make the conversation valuable. David Brennan, research & strategy director at television advisory body Thinkbox agreed with this, providing his opinion on the ‘death of TV’ due to on-demand television and social media. “Instead of word-of-mouth being the ‘new TV’, in fact a lot of conversation is fuelled by programming. 50% of social network users are members of a television-based fan group, led by the 1million X Factor fans out there.”

On-demand television service SeeSaw, which hosts more than 3,000 hours of free content from most of the major broadcasters including Channel 4, Five and BBC Worldwide, today announced that it has sold all of its pre- and mid-programme advertising slots until May. The likes of Barclays Bank, Coca-Cola and Microsoft have all stepped up to acknowledge the power on online viewing, adding weight to the trend.

However, the initial online buzz about the programmes shown by Seesaw contribute heavily to the number of people logging on to watch after its initial screening.  Those that choose to watch on-demand television are highly likely to be influenced by social media chatter, so far from killing the original format, this is just another aspect of the viewing cycle.

Using Channel 4’s Surgery Live show as an example, Gee spoke of how viewers were encouraged to ask questions live using the #slive hashtag – which not only upped viewer numbers (the hashtag was trending globally by the last night of a run of four day’s worth of shows) but also gave them a feeling that they were shaping the editorial content of the programme. Similarly, Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies Live – which used a similar format but hosted the conversation on one site – saw 42,000 viewers log on to watch – and 99,000 young people use the site’s STD checker.

It was also interesting to hear Tiger Aspect’s commercial partnerships director – Claire Heys – say that a brand doesn’t want to just be in one place any more, and that they don’t sit in isolation. She said that her plans for new shows present an integrated offering to clients, and used the company’s Britain’s Best Brain show as an example. Nintendo was looking for a way to talk about its brain training games, and the programme was built around this. There was a direct link between the content of the show, and the advertiser. She noted that you simply cannot plan a TV campaign without considering cross-platform anymore.