The Stage

BBC aims for young audience with interactive online drama

Published Monday 7 November 2005 at 12:50 by Liz Thomas

The BBC is developing an interactive drama for broadband users, as part of a move to open up the ways in which young people can access its services.

Entitled Wannabes, the serial will follow the lives of a group of friends in their late teens and early twenties attempting to break into the music, film and media industries.

The serial will run twice weekly for seven weeks next year and interactive elements will allow viewers to personalise the show’s content, influencing some aspects of each episode and watching the results of advice they offer the main characters.

Jamie Cason, who is part of the BBC Interactive team overseeing the project, said: “It is pre-scripted, so we always know what the endings are going to be, but viewers will have the opportunity to learn more about different characters or advise them on challenges they face and see the consequences of that. There is a range of what is available to audiences from pre-scripted television drama to video games and this is a bridge between them.”

He added it was important to develop new ways of attracting sophisticated younger audiences, who are already used to newer technology. Earlier this year Alison Sharman, controller of CBBC, said it was vital that the Corporation led the way with its interactive services for “an audience that has got new technology faster than anyone else”.

The show is produced by independent production company Illumina Digital and writers from popular drama series are currently being commissioned to work on the project. It is expected there will be a main cast of around seven but the show is still in relatively early stages of development.

For more information and to access the show visit www.bbc.co.uk/teens