Oxygen Teams Up With Tumblr to Infuse TV Shows With GIFs
by Brian Anthony Hernandez
Oxygen will begin airing GIFs during its TV shows starting May 8 with Best Ink 2, a competition show for tattoo artists hosted by Fall Out Boy rocker Pete Wentz.
In the past, GIFs had been used only online to complement programming. Now, viewers will make and see their GIFs on-air alongside the ones Oxygen and "expert GIF artists" create.
"GIFs are the instant replays of unscripted television," Harleen Kahlon, Oxygen's senior vice president of digital, told Mashable. "Our fans ... can't get enough of them. We noticed this fascination with GIFs so we started doing more with this increasingly popular social expression."
Oxygen has teamed up with Tumblr to crowdsource the GIFs - two to four of which will appear each episode in the lower third of viewers' screens. One way Oxygen will encourage people to participate is caption contests where Oxygen will make GIFs out of scenes from futures episodes and then have viewers write captions.
"As we move on to other shows, the integrations will get deeper, with some shows featuring GIFs baked into the actual shows at the production level," Kahlon added.
For now, Best Ink 2 GIFs are posted on the show's Tumblr page.
Aside from Best Ink, Oxygen has thrown "GIF parties" for Bad Girls Club and The Face. Viewers would go to those shows' Tumblr pages while watching the shows to quickly find GIFs they can share across social media. Oxygen would update the pages in real-time.
"GIFs are increasingly powering the social TV conversation," Kahlon said, "with some people even asking if the GIF is the new tweet."
(source)
Oxygen will begin airing GIFs during its TV shows starting May 8 with Best Ink 2, a competition show for tattoo artists hosted by Fall Out Boy rocker Pete Wentz.
In the past, GIFs had been used only online to complement programming. Now, viewers will make and see their GIFs on-air alongside the ones Oxygen and "expert GIF artists" create.
"GIFs are the instant replays of unscripted television," Harleen Kahlon, Oxygen's senior vice president of digital, told Mashable. "Our fans ... can't get enough of them. We noticed this fascination with GIFs so we started doing more with this increasingly popular social expression."
Oxygen has teamed up with Tumblr to crowdsource the GIFs - two to four of which will appear each episode in the lower third of viewers' screens. One way Oxygen will encourage people to participate is caption contests where Oxygen will make GIFs out of scenes from futures episodes and then have viewers write captions.
"As we move on to other shows, the integrations will get deeper, with some shows featuring GIFs baked into the actual shows at the production level," Kahlon added.
For now, Best Ink 2 GIFs are posted on the show's Tumblr page.
Aside from Best Ink, Oxygen has thrown "GIF parties" for Bad Girls Club and The Face. Viewers would go to those shows' Tumblr pages while watching the shows to quickly find GIFs they can share across social media. Oxygen would update the pages in real-time.
"GIFs are increasingly powering the social TV conversation," Kahlon said, "with some people even asking if the GIF is the new tweet."
(source)