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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.
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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.
