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The Battle

The Battle Workshop The virtues and vices of modern media consumption - Student Jeroen Losekoot (INHolland) reports

Mar. 12, 2010

By Jeroen Losekoot (GNR8/INHolland)

Thursday March 11, 2010 was the day the very first real workshop for the UPC project had place. Scene of the crime was the DeSmet Studios in Amsterdam.

Two speakers, UPC and NOS, captivated the audience consisting of both Amsterdam and Haarlem students from GNR8 and the competitors from HvA. Both speakers gave their views on the ever changing television world and how the digital age left its mark. Especially NOS elaborated on how digital tv, interaction and participation can be implemented in nowadays television.

Highlight of the workshop was the assignment that both companies asked the attendants to work out. In just one hour each team had to come up with an interactive format that completes a newfound television program, Newshour, that the NOS will broadcast in the fall of 2010.
With this in mind, GNR8 Amsterdam, GNR8 Haarlem and the students from HvA split up to start a brainstorm session to come up with a format that was innovative but ready to be produced later this year.


GNR8 Amsterdam sat down in a quiet corner of the DeSmet Café to let their minds run free. Agreed was that the format should be something interactive, but not something you see on television today. Because Newshour will be a daily news show the focus had to be on news instead of entertainment. The students agreed that audience participation would be the key and we should find a way to make the audience part of the show without changing the show too much.

A breakthrough in the brainstorm session came when a team member came up with the idea of ‘tabs’. An interactive way for the audience to use tabs, linked to a button on the UPC  remote, as a way for the viewer to get extra information and use twitter to participate in interviews by sending in questions for a guest of the show.


It was decided that the ‘tab’ idea would be our interactive format. With just 5 minutes to go before we had to hit the stage, we quickly made a powerpoint presentation, decided who would be the presenter and once again entered the auditorium for our 4 minutes of fame.

Kudos were given by the jury for our ‘tab’ idea and we got some constructive feedback on how to work out the idea even more.

All in all, the workshop was a very good way to learn from professionals and to further see which steps we still have to take to come up with a final format for the UPC Finale later this year.





De Telegraaf - School battle for TV idea - Friday March 12, 2012