From Television Centre to Generation C

Two different news stories set me thinking today about how fast things are changing.

Firstly, the BBC are moving from the iconic Television Centre and tonight there’s a live concert by Madness as part of a themed BBC4 evening. Perhaps they’ll get the Goodies in, who famously blew it up in one of their episodes. I’ve only been there once, for a job interview and I recall sitting in a waiting room when a giant cactus wheeled past, presumably on its way back to the props dept. I then followed my interviewer around a maze of corridors, up some steps, through a window, across the roof and in through the window at the other side. This, I was assured, was a commonly used short cut. I didn’t get the job. Broadcasting’s loss.

The other thing that caught my eye today was this piece in the Guardian – YouTube reaches a billion viewers – have a read. It was quite interesting but introduced yet another buzzword – Generation C – which was new to me (but I think I try and block these out these days). Gen C appears to include anyone with a mobile device capable of watching video on. That’ll be me then – apparently it’s not an age thing it’s my “connected behaviour” and I’m an expert curator, adept at finding and creating video, such as this one.

Well I don’t know about that, but it’s interesting to reflect how the technology has changed and what it has enabled. When TV Centre was built, the idea of the public making their own programmes would have been the stuff of science fiction. In the 1980s I used to make things for Nexus Television, the student TV service at UEA, but that required some effort lugging heavy cameras around and editing involved manually controlling two massive tape machines. Cameras started getting smaller and incorporated into ever more powerful phones. And now, anyone can knock together a HD video on an iPhone or similar and upload it to Vimeo or YouTube. And of course, the learning angle here is pretty obvious – videos are a great way to help learning.

Apparently Generation C watch less television, but is this because they’re busy curating online video – or is it because there seems to be nothing worth watching on television nowadays? Or has television lost some of the magic because it seems less of a wonder now?

And now I must go and video the cat.