Public Engagement through Online TV channels: A way forward for the Audiovisual Communication of Archaeology?

Abstract

This paper assesses the relationship between the public and archaeology within a rapidly evolving world of communication, where the increasingly dominant position of the Internet is changing the role of television.

The first part of the paper examines the ways in which digital technologies have changed the media environment and, in particular, the televisual communication of archaeology, over the past decade, in Britain. The analysis is based on audience figures of archaeology-themed TV series and one-off programmes, and on other statistics regarding the use of digital and online platforms and of mobile technology. It is argued that, in the United Kingdom, opportunities for screening archaeology on both terrestrial and digital channels have diminished. Such opportunities will be likely to decrease even further in the future, due to increasing competition that is affecting the TV world and is diversifying its (once) mass audiences.

In this scenario, however, the Internet opens up new possibilities for engagement. The second section of this paper compares two different forms of online audio-visual communication: 1) that of strongly-branded online TV channels and 2) the one of shorter-term and/or more discontinuous web-based video communication. The discussion is based on the analysis of specific case studies, investigating the ways in which they have been designed and used. The conclusion highlights that strongly-branded online TV channels are more visible and effective, not only in terms of public engagement (audience attraction and provision of satisfying experiences), but also their contribution towards a more sustainable future for the archaeological sector.

Introduction

In her historical synthesis of the relationship between archaeology and the media in Britain, identifies five ‘ages’ of archaeological communication. According to the author (2007: 122), the last age, of “global communication”, spanning from the 1990s to 2007 witnessed an explosion of archaeology on television up to the year 2003 (on this, see also henson 2006).

In 1994 the television series Time Team was aired for the first time (Taylor 1998: 8–15; Mower 2000: 1; Channel 4 2011), and it soon became a brand that would change the UK public’s perception and understanding of archaeology (Mower 2000; hatley 1997: 14, in Kulik 2007).¹ From 1998 to 2002, archaeological documentaries on British terrestrial channels increased by 367% (Kulik 2007: 122). Most programmes were deliberately popular in appeal, relying on entertainment and education to draw their audiences and succeeding in bringing archaeology back to television to an extent that had not been seen since the 1950s–1960s, when Animal, Vegetable, Mineral (AVM), first, and Buried Treasure and Chronicle, subsequently, made their appearance on the small screen (see Daniel 1978; Jordan 1981; Schadla-hall and Morris 2003: 199–200; West 2004: 114–115). For example, on 20 october 2003,² in a certainly much more competitive televisual and, more generally, media environment, the programme Pompeii doubled the five million viewers of AVM (Kulik 2007: 118),³ with a share of 38%.⁴

In 2004, however, the trend started to change radically and the number of programmes about archaeology on terrestrial television dropped (Kulik 2007: 123). In considering possible future developments of this scenario, Kulik (2007: 123) underlines that the take-up of narrowcasting could lead to archaeology moving to more niche channels, like BBC4, and that such a change might also allow higher quality programming, tailored for smaller and interested segments of the public.

Although convincing at the time of publication (2007), Kulik’s analysis needs to be reviewed, by retracing the evolution of the television world since the beginning of the 21st century and the even more rapid changes that have occurred since 2006–2007, with the emerging role of the Internet as a means of delivering media content (see, for example, BArB 2011a; EBU 2008; ofcom 2007: 19–21, 56–57; ofcom 2010: 103–106, 177–178; but also Evans 2011: 1).

The intention of this article is to return to the point where Kulik stopped and indicate a way forward for engaging the public with archaeology through audiovisual communication on online platforms, in the changed and changing media landscape. To achieve this aim, the problem is tackled in three stages.

Firstly, starting again from the year 2003 we examine how the scenario of television has varied since then, how the offer of archaeological programmes has been reshaped by digital technologies and what operational margins are left, today, for communicating archaeology through televisual broadcasting and narrowcasting.

Secondly, based on such an examination, we explore the potential of online thematic channel, run by partnerships which include archaeologists, archaeological companies or institutions that place archaeology at the centre of their mission. This is done through the presentation of two case studies, Archeologia Viva TV⁵ (2011) and The Archaeology Channel⁶ (2011a), which have proved successful according to audience analyses.

Thirdly, the importance of maintaining a television brand when communicating via online audiovisuals is revealed by the less convincing results (primarily in terms of reach and ability to retain viewers) attained by those videos that are uploaded on, or linked to, the webpages of key institutions in the cultural sector as part of a much wider user experience without the intention to create a dedicated, online TV output. Finally, clarification is needed on the ways in which key concepts, which recur throughout the paper, are understood and addressed. Television is loosely defined as any activity that identifies itself as such and whose mission is to commission and deliver audiovisual content.⁷

A television channel is an institution or partnership which provides televisual output, but also the means, the portal via which television is made available to the audience on different platforms (terrestrial, digital, cable, satellite and online). Internet (or online) television is any kind of television distributed through the Internet, whereas Web TV is a form of online television which requires a browser in order to be accessed.

As indicated, online television is examined as a means of promoting public engagement with archaeology, that is of broadening the impact of scientific research (Dolan 2008: 1) by connecting and sharing results with the public (nCCPE 2011). This should not be interpreted as the pursuit of a one-way, transmission form of communication, but, instead, as the provision of spaces where archaeological interpretations are presented and can be discussed, allowing multi-faceted experiences which comprise elements spanning from sociability to the acquisition of information.⁸ This is a first component of engagement, the ‘socio-cultural’ one. The second component: ‘promotional’ and ultimately economic, may either be just a consequence of the previous component, or a goal in its own right and consists of marketing the activity carried out by the partner/s involved in public engagement. Both these elements will be explored as far as possible, with the data that were available regarding the use of online TV channels and Web-based videos.

### Television and archaeological TV programmes since 2003

At the present time, in Britain, the overall picture of traditional television dealing with archaeological topics is one of decline,⁹ when compared to the situation at the beginning of the century.

In 2003, the main terrestrial channels broadcast around 185 hours of archaeology and ancient history, and a further 90 hours on other heritage-related subjects (henson 2006).¹⁰ Channel 4 offered popular series, such as ‘Time Team’ (2.7 million viewers, on average), ‘The Great Pyramid’ (2.3 million, on 28 April 2003) and ‘Secrets of the Dead’ (2.3 million, on average).¹¹

The same year, Channel 5 offered a range of one-off programmes with slightly lower, but still solid, viewing figures. Among them was ‘Who killed Tutankhamun?’ (1.9 million viewers, on 21 February 2003) and ‘Britain’s Finest Ancient Monuments’ (1.6 million viewers, on 2 July 2003).¹² however, it was BBC1 and BBC2 that attracted the largest audiences, particularly ‘Pompeii: The last Day’, which was watched by ten million people (on 20 october 2003), a result that would be hard to imagine today.¹³

In 2010, the archaeological series with the highest number of viewers for a single viewing was ‘Digging for Britain’ (from 1.2 to 2.6 million viewers).¹⁴ Programmes broadcast by Channel 4 had smaller audiences, when compared to the BBC and to C4 figures from 2003; the viewers of ‘Time Team’ and ‘Time Team Specials’, for example, were between 1.7 and 1.9 million, so roughly one million less than seven years before.¹⁵

For the foreseeable future, it is likely that archaeology and similar niche factual programming areas will continue to be marginalised on the terrestrial channels, as the survival of broadcasting (and, on a different scale, of digital narrowcasting as well) is based on the provision of ‘hits’ (Anderson 2004, 2006: 27–40). The latter are essential for commercial channels, but are an important drive also for non-commercial broadcasters in a ‘crowded marketplace’, although, in this case, their weight is counterbalanced by a PSB¹⁶ requirement.

Being currently tied to the scheduling requirements of terrestrial broadcasters, the number of archaeological programmes on offer viathe internet is also rather limited. It was 45 hours in 2010¹⁷ (up from roughly 25 in 2009,¹⁸ but the figure is still low) and divides into two camps. on the one hand, there is the BBC output, which consists of presenter-led documentary series such as ‘Ancient Worlds’ and is available for a short period of only seven days on BBC’s iPlayer, a platform that can be accessed on free-view receivers and over the Internet.¹⁹ on the other hand, there is ‘Time Team’, offered through Channel 4’s 4oD (4 on Demand) service.

A strong argument can be made, however, for online television as a way forward for audiovisual engagement, once untied from scheduling requirements.

Table 1 Share of terrestrial channels compared with that of other channels (non-terrestrial), from 2001 to 2010.

Over the last decade, the audience has rapidly fragmented with the powerful homogeneity of the previous fifty years now challenged, due to the rise of multi-channel television (satellite, cable and digital terrestrial), which has caused a shift from broadcasting to narrowcasting, from mass production, distribution and consumption, to more niche, personalised ones (Anderson 2004; Buonanno and radice 2008: 20–26). Multi-channel television’s market share increased rapidly, from January 2001 (being present in nine million homes), to 24.5 million homes in January 2011 (24.5 million homes) (BArB 2011b).

The uptake of this platform has eroded the dominance of the terrestrial broadcasters amongst TV viewers. So, in the ten years from 2001 to 2010, the share of non-terrestrial channels has more than doubled to a figure that today approaches ITV’s audience in 1983, the year when Channel 4 was set up (Table 1). An increasingly selective and content-focused viewership formed, which, although no longer depending on four or five broadcasters, was still tied to the demands of the schedules on offer to them from any one of the 137 broadcast platforms available in Britain.

The delivery of television over the internet has liberated viewers from the broadcasters’ imposed schedules. In the United Kingdom, a panoply of platforms are available: BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4 on Demand, Demand 5, Sky Player, SeeSaw, Blinkbox and Eurosport Player. These platforms provide an online televisual offer accessible to a large part of the population.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, 74% of households in Britain had broadband (fixed and mobile), and 27% of adults were smartphone users (ofcom 2011: 47, 303). only a few months earlier, in november 2010, 14% of adults in the UK claimed to have watched television via a PC or a laptop in the previous week, and a further 1.95% via their mobile phone (BArB 2011a). When asked if they had ever watched TV by means of PC or laptop the figure was 34%, up from 27% in 2009, and 5% for mobile phones, up from 3.1% in 2009 (BArB 2011a).

It should also be noted that those engaging with television through these devices tend to watch around two hours a week, so, considering the average number of hours watched daily in the UK in 2010 (BArB 2011a), they can be defined as ‘light viewers’. Even more striking are the figures for 15 to 34 year olds, where 46% have watched television via PC or laptop, with higher socially stratified sectors (ABC1s) following close behind at 43% (BArB 2011a).

Interestingly, the accessibility of television as a result of its availability on the Internet has been to the advantage of traditional television viewing, not at its expense. This is demonstrated, for example, by the fact that, in 2010, the average number of hours viewed per day reached over four hours (ofcom 2011: 134; Sweney 2010), for the very first time in the history of television. Clearly, Internet television allows viewers to find what they want to watch when they want to watch it (see also gibs 2008: 16) and, as a result, this contributes to a higher overall number of hours watched.

This trend is matched by a decline in those who say that they would most miss their televisions, with people from 16 to 24 years old placing TV second to mobile phones for the first time ever (Conlan 2011). Even amongst all adults, interest in television has declined over the last year from 50% to 44%, although, for this group, it still ranks ahead of mobile phones (Conlan 2011). From the analysis that has been conducted, four observations can be made as regards the impact on the communication of archaeology of the way in which digital technologies have changed the offer and consumption of traditional television.

1. The take-up of online TV within the UK is very rapid, mainly due to technological advances driven by the lead-on delivery programme BBC iPlayer, which, in the week ending 9th July 2011, was the sixteenth most visited website in the UK across all categories and the third among entertainment websites (Experian hitwise 2011).²⁰
2. Wider televisual output is changing peoples’ TV viewing habits and accelerating the fragmenting of the audience into increasingly smaller and highly discriminatory groups who are now able to be more decisive about the programmes that they like to watch and the modality for doing so.
3. The loss of dominance by terrestrial broadcasters in both the commissioning and transmission of programming creates an

opportunity for online ‘narrowcasters’, especially when it appeals to ABC1s, who may be willing to pay for high quality, niche programming once a business model has been established. 4. Finally, it is suggested that at least a part of these new types of archaeological programming should be free from scheduling requirements and provided by partnerships of archaeology-centred institutions and TV professionals.

Archaeological TV channels online: a possible way forward

The thematic Web channel Archeologia Viva TV (2011) will now be examined, as a successful case of online archaeological narrowcasting, managed by a partnership of the kind that has been suggested in the previous paragraph. The design, audience profile and use, and the economic model of the channel will be analysed and compared to those of its American parallel, The Archaeology Channel (2011a). By doing so, it will be possible to provide specific strategies for an effective communication of archaeology via online television. It should be noticed that the discussion is based on on-site metrics made available by the managers of the two channels. In the case of AV TV, data was derived from the “visitor reporting tool” google Analytics (Clifton 2010: 8). Unfortunately, only certain information could be viewed and direct access to metrics, which would have allowed a more detailed and segmented analysis, was not possible.

Archeologia Viva TV (2009) was the first thematic web channel on archaeology to be produced in Italy. Established in 2009, it was the result of a twenty year-long collaboration between the International Festival of Archaeological Cinema of rovereto, the first festival of such kind to be organized in Europe, and Archeologia Viva, the most popular specialized magazine about archaeology, in Italy, with a circulation of 40,000 copies per month (Pruneti 2011). The mission of the channel is that of promoting public engagement, intended as the facilitation of direct “encounters” between archaeologists and an interested audience (Archeologia Viva TV 2009).

The structure of the channel is essentially very simple and user-friendly. It is composed of two main sections: ‘on air’ and ‘on demand’. The former has a news format, with short videos streaming according to a schedule that is updated on a bi-weekly timetable, whereas the ‘on demand’ section is an archive with three different types of videos: news, documentaries and ‘conversations’ (interviews of specialists). At the time of writing, there are about 177 videos of variable length available on the channel. news videos are generally either 7–8 minutes or 15 minutes in length, while most documentaries are around 30 minutes long and ‘conversations’ are generally even longer (40 to 60 minutes, or more).

The content has a very broad spectrum and includes archaeological research carried out by Italian teams, both in Italy and abroad, on the most diverse themes and periods, but always maintaining either a journalistic or a narrative-documentary slant, and a tight relationship with the events organised by the magazine Archaeologia Viva and the Film Festival of rovereto.

\The audience of AV TV is not as large as that of The Archaeology Channel, for example, but this is both because AV TV is in Italian and because it has just started. Unique visitors (a measure of reach) have been increasing between January 2010 and January 2011 (+36%), and have doubled those of Sperimentarea.tv (2011), the generalist Web TV that is edited and managed by the Museum of rovereto (23,469 against 14,472). This might well be read as a further sign of the importance of forming an alliance with a strong media brand like the magazine Archeologia Viva. The audience of AV TV is a motivated one. Between January 2010 and January 2011, those who casually ended up on the website, or came and soon left disliking it have been few. This is shown by the small number of single-page visits, which is expressed by a very low bounce rate of just 0.5%. A very good figure, if we think that, in general, it is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20% (Kaushik 2007). The bounce rate, also defined as a “one-page, zero-action visit” (Clifton 2010: 330), is a valuable metric because “it indicates the immediate reaction of a visitor” (Tonkin et al. 2010: 270).²¹ having the opportunity, it would be fruitful to conduct an online survey to ascertain the specific drivers of visitors’ motivation.

It is a loyal audience as well, as shown by the fact that most users (43% of them) arrive at Web TV directly, by typing the UrL into their browser, while only 29% come from referring sites and 28% from search engines (typing “Archeologia Viva TV” instead of just “Archeologia Viva”, or even less specific key words). As observed by Piero Pruneti, director of Archeologia Viva, viewers initially learn about Web TV reading the magazine Archeologia Viva, then they become loyal to Web TV, and this loyalty helps to reinforce the loyalty towards the magazine.²²

Finally, in spite of the language, the geographic distribution of the audience has been relatively wide in the past year. Most visits have been from Italy (55,397), but along the Tail (with reference to Chris Anderson’s Long Tail model) there have been visits from 82 more countries, prevalently western European, northern American and Asian. According to Anderson’s model (2004, 2006),²³ the entertainment market of the 20 th century was based on the logic of selling much of a few, that is selling a very restricted range of products to a mass market. In his view, the media economy of the 21st century is, instead, profoundly different. It has been changed by digital technologies, which have introduced the possibility for overcoming two limitations of the hits-based market: the limitation of space (virtually anything can be made available online) and the limitation of local output: audiences have enlarged and become global. In this context, niche products may also, more easily be offered (Anderson 2004, 2006).

On average, visitors stay on the site for about eight minutesand view a little over two pages per visit, suggesting that they find the content they are looking for, view and leave. The most viewed pages are the one showing the most recent videos in the archive (38,026 page views)²⁴ and the homepage with ‘on air’ archaeological news (25,617 page views),²⁵ demonstrating the appeal of the news format and the effectiveness of short, streaming videos, which do not require users to select what they want to watch every time. It is the advantage of having information reaching the audience, as opposed to the audience having to go to the information continuously.

Although Web TV achieves its mission of public engagement, with a growing, motivated audience, it seems not to be making the most of the potential of online platforms. The channel provides a typically mass mediated communication “from one to many” (Menduni 2006: 11; McQuail 2005: 4), without offering the audience much space for contributing, if not by sharing on major networking portals (Facebook, Twitter and Myspace). A great advantage of Internet television is, that it also allows interaction through user-generated content, which has transformed narrowcasting into “individual casting” (noam 2008: 8), and which could be integrated into the format of online thematic channels. In such way, a community which discusses the subject may form, and data on users’ preferences and interests can be gathered and analysed in order to improve the overall output.

The effectiveness of the channel depends on the media expertise of the partners, their scientific networks and the brands they hold, which grant visibility and authority to contents. The magazine Archeologia Viva provides a strong brand name and the necessary funding to cover the costs (paying the company that has developed the structure of Web TV, for example; Pruneti 2011). Editorial expertise is provided by the staff of the film festival, who collect videos and decide what to show (Di Blasi 2011). Videos reach editors ‘naturally’, as a result of the activities that are organized by the Film Festival and the magazine Archeologia Viva (Di Blasi 2011). This is the case for documentaries, most of which are produced by archaeological research teams and sent to the editorial board to participate in the Film Festival. ‘Conversations’ are filmed, for the most part, at events held during the Film Festival, where archaeologists and historians are invited and interviewed in the presence of an audience.

The profile and preferences of AV TV’s users are similar to those of The Archaeology Channel (TAC) in three main ways. Firstly, AV TV, like TAC, had a slow beginning. It was established in 2000 but really blossomed only three years later, and in 2008 it achieved eight million page views. In spite of technical problems that caused the website not to work properly on certain days and affected web traffic, between March 2010 and April 2011 the channel still had 896,563 page views, 322,222 visits and 261,462unique visitors. Secondly, visitors to TAC are also very motivated, as suggested by: the low bounce rate (it has oscillated between 5% and 10% in the past twelve months); by the fact that most visitors access the Web TV directly and by other survey data, published on TAC’s website (The Archaeology Channel 2011b). According to the latter, 66 out of 99 respondents hold, at least, a university degree, 22 are working archaeologists and/or teachers and professors, 26 are students and 47 are archaeology enthusiasts. The survey also tells us that, different from what might have been expected, age does not constitute a barrier to access, since the age distribution is quite broad, with a mode of 46 to 55 (The Archaeology Channel 2011b). People come from nearly every country on the planet, with a bias towards north America and Western Europe, but with increasing numbers from China, the Middle East, and the developing world. The third and last important similarity with AV TV is the primacy of archaeological news in terms of popularity: the Audio news is currently TAC’s most popular programme (Pettigrew 2011).

The business model on which AV TV and TAC are based differ substantially. AV TV lives off the resources and activities of the Film Festival and AV magazine. on the other hand, TAC, is sustained by underwriting, which is a scheme by which companies provide funding in exchange for a mention on the site itself (The Archaeology Channel 2011b). Private persons may also contribute, by becoming members. The Archaeology Channel is, in fact, a visitor-supported non-profit public service and membership provide its primary source of revenue to cover expenses (costs of webcasting, website development, new programming, special projects, etc.) (The Archaeology Channel 2011c). Both AV TV and TAC, however, are recognisable as distinct brands of archaeological television, and do not depend on public funding.

Web-based audiovisual content about archaeology: a more casual output

It is important to comprehend how instances of online television discussed in the previous paragraph are manifestly different from single/multiple video(s) that are made available to an online audience in a more casual manner, for example a video on youTube, or a page of videos. The latter examples generally do not have an editorial board or strategic aim which provides the continuity of vision to create a distinct product or brand of archaeological online television.

First of all, one must try to ascertain why individuals and organisations want to pursue an engagement strategy based on online audiovisuals; is it because it is trendy, is easy, is cheap, or is the Internet now the place to be? In the current financial climate, many archaeological organisations have seen the need to establish a dialogue with their funders (primarily the taxpaying public), and the provision of audiovisual content is a very simple means to achieve this aim. Sometimes, online videos will be the only way of engaging with an archaeological discovery, or the work of a unit. Notable examples of the use of audiovisual communication in the commercial archaeology sector can be found on the Prescott Street (2011), Wessex Archaeology (2011) and Thames Discovery Programme (2011) websites.

A wide array of methods is available to the casual broadcaster (or narrowcaster) to implement their vision, depending on the core reasons that lead the institution to broadcast. For example, one can now make use of a variety of platforms, which include iTunesU (for university based content), Vimeo (19 million users worldwide, and 930,000 in the UK; google 2011a), youTube (720 million users worldwide, and 31 million in the UK; google 2011b), dedicated software like Videola (2011) or Miro Community (2011), and Amazon CloudFront coupled with an embedded open source video player. Some of these are built on open standards, are devoid of advertising and can be freely adapted by the end user; others pay a premium to use the service and present advert-free content. It is now possible to host audio-visuals on an organisation’s own hardware, install the correct software and stream the content without the need for third party intervention.

Several factors can influence the methodological path that one chooses for showing Web-based videos; for example the ability to present high definition content, the promise of 99% availability of resources not being blocked by institutional Information Services policy, or a broad interoperability that allows viewing on a panoply of mobile multi-platform devices (eg laptops, tablets, hand-held gaming consoles, or smartphones). A great proportion of the United Kingdom’s population now carries a device with them daily, which can access on-demand video through the microwave spectrum. The rise of the extremely sophisticated smartphone and its integration into society is evident, as Bell (2011) claims “phones allow us to expand our influence to other things, people, and places”. This succinct statement sums up what is being achieved by broadcasters who provide their content to mobile platforms.

All of the factors that have been mentioned are extremely desirable. In economic terms, it could be posited, that the fiscal burden is primarily placed within the acquisition of audio-visuals rather than the broadcasting. High costs are for producing high quality (or even professional) content and could be seen as being squarely caused by the acquisition of the equipment and the skills to create, rather than on the provision of platforms for engaging with viewers. Those skills include training in the arts of photography, videography, and Web-design.

Organisations and institutions that produce more ‘casual’ web-based audio-visual content about archaeology include:

• The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A): embedded video channel and YouTube presence (The Victoria and Albert Museum 2008);
• The British Museum (BM): YouTube and embedded video (The British Museum 2011a);
• The Thames Discovery Project (TDP): Vimeo and YouTube (UCLTV 2011);
• Wessex Archaeology (WA): YouTube and Vimeo (Wessex Archaeology 2011).

At first glance, it is apparent that the quality of output produced by these web broadcasters varies greatly in terms of:

• length;
• degree of dynamism;
• production values;
• usage and interaction;
• type of content.

As regards the fourth point, a metric to evaluate the successful use of these ‘casual’ videos via quantitative analysis is the ‘number of views’ Interaction, can be measured by noting the number of times they have been shared via social media.²⁶ When considering the latter argument, however, one should take into account how many people actually use the sharing services provided on a particular website. These include Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Google, Buzz, MySpace, Stumbleupon, Yahoo and Twitter. Each of these services has experienced a peak of popularity, and many are now on the wane. MySpace, for example, is shedding users daily (Garrahan 2009; Arrington 2011), whereas Facebook is rapidly gaining speed worldwide and in the UK it is now used by 30 million people, nearly half of the British population (Barnett 2011). Therefore, the volume of sharing on each network will be biased; additionally, many people now have and actively practice poly-social identities on the Web (for example, work and personal Twitter accounts) and might actually share many of these videos multiple times. In spite of the bias, sharing on social media remains a revealing indicator, since, as stated by Arts Council England et al. (2010: 44), these have “become a major tool for discovering as well as sharing information about arts and culture, second only to search through Google”.

Within the five criteria mentioned above, high volumes appear to be mainly achieved for videos which are shorter, punchy and of high production quality. This is because the videos are presented as by-products (usually for marketing reasons), as opposed to stand-alones, with a strongly developed TV brand presence. Ergo, these users could be categorised as ‘casual’; their main motivation for accessing Web content is not usually that of watching videos, but of visiting a website via search or from an interest developed by chance. Users within this category are often extremely impatient and fickle; their attention is not likely to extend to long broadcasts and time spent on site is not particularly high. They are not dedicated subscribers to the content that these websites produce.

Two examples demonstrate this paradox between short and full length audiovisuals. Wessex Archaeology’s video of a roman coffin being opened, has been viewed over 60,000 times (see Table 2, for YouTube comparative statistics). As opposed to ‘Time Team’s’ YouTube full length episode entitled ‘Castle of the Saxon Kings’, which has reached only 1,400 views. In comparing the two, it should be considered that there is at least one mitigating factor for the disparity. Wessex Archaeology is only able to deliver their content over the Web, whilst ‘Time Team’ has the might of their terrestrial and digital TV distributor network, the facility to download full episodes legally via 4 on Demand, or illegally, via illegal file sharing, and a much larger market, thanks to the strong Channel 4 brand. Hence, the Time Team’s YouTube capitalisation is very low compared to a solely Web distributed video offer. Moreover, it can be the case that the WA website has been optimised in such a way (see Goskar, this volume) that it features highly in search results?

Overall, however, the volume of users of this more casual web-based audio-visual content is not impressive. Contrasting the viewing figures presented above with more light-hearted broadcast entertainment videos – for instance “Simon’s Cat” YouTube channel (Simonscat 2011), which has about ten million views per animated video – provides a stark reminder that the market for archaeology is a niche one.

Within the Museum sector, in spite of the high quality of production, audiovisual content from institutions such as the British Museum also attracts few users. Looking at figures²⁷ produced using the British Museum’s analytical software (the sector wide Google Analytics – Finnis et al. 2011: section 4) shows a similar pattern for embedded videos within the website (Table 3). For example, the exhibition driven Afghanistan teaser video was 1.45 minutes long, showed at 480p resolution (most videos from the cultural sector appear to be standard at 360p), and had audio transcription for accessibility. It was viewed 12,885 times, with average time spent on the page 1.54 minutes and with a high bounce rate of 52.30% (between 1 January 2011 and 31 July 2011), which suggests that people did watch the entire audiovisual, but were likely to leave as soon as they had finished viewing.

The trend of low uptake of Web videos by the casual broad or narrowcaster is confirmed when considering the larger museums that have established a presence on the youTube platform (Table 2). Many of these institutions have archaeological content, are involved in the administration of archaeology or are primarily archaeological by remit. The subscriber column rarely reaches four digits and there are no videos that approach the million view mark, even though some institutions are prolific producers of audiovisual material (eg the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum). Figures for the videos produced for the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) give even worse results, and especially when one considers their status as the administrative national body for culture in the UK. For an early adopter of the technology (joining in June 2006), their output is un-engaging as demonstrated by the fact that the mean on their channel is less than 600 views. This could be attributed to several factors, such as a low appeal to the public, or poor search engine visibility. In this particular case, it is probably a combination of both reasons.

Conclusions: strategies of engagement through online televisual communication

This article has underlined how the loss of dominance by traditional broadcasters has created an opportunity for ‘narrowcast’ programming and how the UK is a leading on-line television viewing nation. There is space, therefore, for the development of niche markets of Internet-delivered archaeological television, detached from the offerings and demands of the terrestrial channels operating in Britain.

If engagement is intended as the maximisation of research impact through the achievement of two objectives (marketing and the provision of composite experiences in which learning plays the key role), then the strategy to pursue is not that of relying on a more casual operation of intermittent provision of Web-based audiovisuals. These ‘get lost’ online; they are difficult to find on youTube and, arguably, constitute just an element of a much wider user experience when uploaded on the websites of cultural institutions, even national ones such as the British Museum. It seems that, in order for the output to become visible online, strong branding is needed. This is possible if strong archaeological and media brands create a distinct product which is in turn branded as online archaeological television.²⁸ After all, research carried out on the population of Belgium, the netherlands and the UK has proved that television is the source of information which is considered to be the most reliable in those countries, after the Internet (InSites Consulting 2009);²⁹ and Internet, more than the Web. While the former is expanding and gaining speed, the latter is not as much. This is because accessing “semi-closed platforms that use the Internet for transport, but not the browser for display” is simpler and applications which have become popular after the take up of ioS technology are increasingly preferred to search engines, since they are more structured and “fit better” into people’s lives (Anderson and Wolff 2010).

It is via those platforms as well as websites, which do allow greater interconnectivity, that online archaeological TV could be made available. There, it should be possible to find an ‘on air’ section, with shorter news videos up to 4–5 minutes long, which ‘automatically’ provide information that users may easily access also through their smartphones, for example. An ‘on-demand’ section could also be present, with a wide range of longer documentaries and interviews to choose from. Moreover, archaeological TV should not be rigidly institutional, like the Web channel Archeologia Viva TV, but allow interaction (content-sharing and discussion). “People have most trust in each other” even before media, and friends, acquaintances and colleagues are the most trusted, according to the research that was mentioned before (InSites Consulting 2009).

Therefore sharing is not only important for providing a social experience and for facilitating interpretation, but, also for reasons related to the marketing of the application itself. An Internet-supported application of archaeological television is then the strategy that is suggested as a way forward for engaging interested audiences in the results of archaeological research, in a direct manner, easy to produce, distribute and use. Although this path has not been trodden yet, there are signs, especially in the museum sector, which suggests that the proposed approach, or a similar one, may soon be adopted by private or public organizations having archaeology at the core of their mission.

During a debate in 2009 at the London School of Economics (LSE), entitled ‘The Museum of the 21 st Century’, the Director of The British Museum, neil Macgregor, stated: “The future has to be, without question, the museum as a publisher and broadcaster” (higgins 2009; Macgregor and Serota 2009). Being publishers and broadcasters (possibly in partnership with creative and ICT industries) will help archaeological institutions to diversify their sources of funding and increase their financial sustainability. The importance of establishing networks between or within the creative and cultural sectors, in order to deliver original digital content, has been underlined by recent EU and UK policy as a way in which both sectors may face the current period of austerity, and generate economic growth (eg Commission of the European Communities 2007; European Commission 2010; DCMS and Berr 2009; Arts Council England 2010).

Table 2: Figures for the consumption of youTube content as at 2 August 2011

Table 3: Statistics regarding the consumption of a selection of British Museum Web-videos, from 1 January 2011 to 31 July 2011 (UrLs are not provided as they are subject to change).

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Enrico Crema, Leif Isaksen, Gabriel Moshenska, Jim Mower and Tim Schadla-hall, for their helpful reviews, comments and for the inspiring insights offered on this paper.

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Footnotes