Working in digital recruitment in Manchester, and also London, it’s always tempting to glance over and see what the monumental cultural institution of the BBC are up to. Right now the Beeb is setting out to trial 200 people’s reactions to BBC programming with the help of high tech start-up CrowdEmotion. The technology can measure reactions to stimuli and detect emotions such as anger, fear, disgust, happiness and surprise.

The face of a man who is very surprised and quite sad, apparently.
(credit: telegraph)


Executive Vice President of BBC Worldwide, David Boyle said "This is the first study of its kind for BBC Worldwide to measure people's emotional responses to programmes using a technology-led, neuroscience approach.
"CrowdEmotion's ability to capture, record and quantify our audience's emotional attachment and engagement to our TV shows, places BBC Worldwide at the forefront of global audience research and ultimately determines what our fans love to watch."
"With today’s media noisier than ever, we’re here to innovate, bring emotions to life and reshape broadcast media through our findings,” he said.
One of the best ways to gauge sentiment the era offers is social media and the BBC would do well avoid some of the criticism they’ve already suffered this World Cup. Least of all, for the safety of the innocent bystanders, such as the unfortunately named Phil Neville (@philneville on twitter), a radiator fitter from Suffolk who received hatred meant for his namesake. The intended Phil Neville, a slightly better defender and the man who singlehandedly eliminated England from Euro 2000, was torn apart for his 'uninteresting' commentary on England vs Italy.
The BBC has found itself embroiled in a few controversies lately and being able to more accurately judge how the viewers' perceptions are affected by these could significantly change the TV landscape. As increasingly TV is being consumed on devices that point a camera back into your face, the potential for the technology going forwards is obvious and wide-reaching.
To look boldly to the future, or maybe just pure fantasy, for a minute – wouldn’t it be fun if we could decide talent shows with a thumbs up or thumbs down, Roman emperor style? (We are sadly aware that's a bit of a myth though)

"Maximus, your rendition of Beyonce's 'Crazy in Love' was spectacular and I can't wait to see you in the live shows"
(credit: lt.vt)
For now though the BBC is just training webcams onto us to check [spoiler in link] we actually like Sherlock as much as we tweet we do. They’ll roll it out globally, to key markets such as Russia and Australia in the coming months.