• by Mike Bloxham , Op-Ed Contributor, February 8, 2012

 The BBC differs from other media organizations in many ways, not least of which is it’s ubiquity across all media platforms. That's a position it has occupied for decades, with each new medium being added as it has emerged.

In addition, there is its public sector mandate, the fact it is not required to make a profit -- though don’t confuse that with any lack of fiscal accountability.
Another thing that is different about the BBC -- and for which many media owners would give their right arm -- is the size caliber of its R&D operation.  Perhaps the closest American analogy would be the Bell Labs of old.

At times such as these, when we’re all trying to work out how best to navigate the waters of the media ecosystem, the opportunity to experiment, learn and incubate innovative learning has become a luxury few can afford in such a hostile economic climate.

That being said, it’s worth watching what goes on in the few centers of real media-related R&D -- in the hope we can learn vicariously.

 For example, among the many things going on at the BBC is an initiative aimed at developing a means of navigating its vast archives on the basis of emotion.  It’s broadly accepted that different programs make us feel different ways and that we enjoy certain programs more when we are already in certain moods.  

But we don’t always know what to watch --and we certainly don’t know which programs we haven’t seen are likely to hit the right emotional spot.

So why not a system that enables viewers to search by emotional meta-tagging, based on characteristics of the programs and their effects of viewers?

This is something the BBC has been working on for a while -- though it will be some time before anything sees the light of day on a mass scale. One can’t help but think of the application for media planning and buying, or even for creating program schedules. 

For planners and buyers, it’s easy to see how programs delivering the right audience could also be evaluated for a emotional factor consistent with the emotional tonality of the campaign being run. That would ensure a better contextual fit for the message; after all, what ad campaign ever ran without a defined emotional tonality?

For programmers, the opportunity would exist to create a schedule comprising a range of programming that not only delivers an audience, but which does so in different frames of mind desirable to advertisers.

This is all some way off, but never underestimate the value of what may come out of publicly funded R&D labs in far away countries.