RTE taking on Bebo

The Examiner ran a piece on RTEs plan to run Aisling’s Diary, a three minute “Snack TV” soap aimed at teenagers.  Its almost a Bebo in reverse.  Bebo started Sophies Diary online and are now looking to the major tv stations to broadcast.  It will be interesting to see how interactive it is and how embedded the Bebo profile section will be.  The RTE website does not have the number of teenagers crawling through it that Bebo does.  Major rewrites of scripts on a daily basis place new demands on production teams that previously had time to absorb market research before changing direction.  Now viewers can impact the shape of future programmes and lobby for their own outcomes.  Sophies Diary is well on the road for subtle product placement with brands like Sure blended in the storyline.  Rather than an obvious Truman Show holding the product up to the hidden cameras the story line was worked around tricky situations that would require good deordorant.  Sure has a sting at the beginning and end.  Fees of 200K sterling have been mentioned for this type exposure so it will be interesting to see what route RTE takes.  Its great to see some Irish content finally popping up and proof that the social networks are here to stay and offer some good communications opportunities.  At three minutes pop it show how short the captive attention span is.