Australia’s premiere interactive political panel show, the ABC’s “Q&A”, is considering introducing a Twitter-based “truth-o-meter”, where viewers at home will be able to judge the veracity of the claims politicians and other panellists make on the show.
Reports Fairfax, the ABC is looking at ways to better integrate the social platform into the show’s structure, including allowing the audience to prompt host Tony Jones to push panellists for a clearer reply to questions.
“Tony asks someone about the budget. We could then ask [viewers via Twitter], ‘Is this politician answering the question or dodging the question?’,” explains executive producer Peter McEvoy. The results of such a poll could then be presented on screen and to Jones, who could then insist on a clear and direct response.
While “Q&A” already displays tweets from viewers on the bottom of the screen, both the show’s executives and representatives for the social media giant told Fairfax they are looking for better ways for the audience to utilise Twitter to engage with the show in real time.
Another likely strategy for this could be the introduction of live Twitter questions from home viewers, something that happens now only occasionally on the show. “To get that happening, we need to get more people asking strong questions,” explains McEvoy. “We want to rely on Twitter as a source of questions.”
Twitter is also looking at other ways to integrate with Australian television and hopes to make an impact on multiple genres including reality TV, sports, game shows, dramas and advertisements.
Such ideas include more Twitter “chats” with actors and scriptwriters, running live Twitter polls on the bottom of commercials, a real-time game show where viewers can play along on Twitter and a TV-based version of Twitter’s new “while you were away” feature.
