“Whenever I tell how I started working in Twision no one believes it”, Marta Simonet says.
Theatre actress, TV presenter, blogger, model, since last March, when it began airing, she’s also one of the three hosts of Twision, the first world-wide Twitter television initiative originated from a digital TV channel in Spain, Veo7, a part of Unidad Editorial. Already this year Twision was one of this year’s most innovative formats at the MIP TV in Cannes.
“It happened by chance”, she explains. “While surfing in twitter I found out there was a show of this kind airing in my own country, so I sent a message to the channel’s director, Melchor Miralles, saying I found it fascinating and that I was there for whatever was needed. He called me inviting my as a guest, made me a good offer and I accepted it right away”.
Twision (pronounced tu visión, your view) is an hour and a half long program airing every Saturday that lets viewers send in tweets live that three hosts then interact with. The show takes place in a studio with two guys and Marta on laptops and a huge screen behind them to showcase tweets. The site features a stream of tweets coming in next to the video player. The viewers are able to use the #veo7 hash tag to speak directly to presenters and influence where the program’s discussion goes — branded “twittertulia”. Every show receives around 2500 tweets live.
But this is only a small part of the audience participation. Throughout the whole week preceding the show Twision receives thousands of twits suggesting issues and sending videos which are then the bulk of the content of every show together with the issues mentioned that week in the social networks. Facebook group lists, Youtube video, people’s pictures, the best sentences of the week are also usual. Moreover every show hosts twit-guests (users) while all the interviews are carried out live through the same social network.
“The show started as an entertainment for tweeters having their messages on the screen and then became a late night show mixing social networks with TV. This happened thanks to the introduction of new contents, such as topical reports and sports which are indeed treated on social networks but do interest everyone”.
Twision’s team work is made up of around twenty people –mostly men- coming from the different Veo7 programs. “Everyone tries to get involved dedicating one’s spare time to it once it’s a really fun job to do”.
In Twision Marta also holds a section called “140 seconds with Marta Simonet” which consists of streets reports on meeting and events promoted in the social networks.
“Everywhere there’s a party, good music and fun, there you find me”, she promises.
Fun and “chispa” (wit) is in fact something she seeks in everything she does. In Twision she found it with no big effort especially because “even if we do have a script with marked guidelines on the content we are totally free of leaving out most of it and can perfectly improvise, which I love to do”.
Marta considers social networks to be like a casting room where “you can contact with people you would never have the chance to meet in the streets”. Thanks to that first tweet to Miralles Marta is also working now in a daily Veo7 sports program where she covers issues related to the Spanish national team. Her busy life, though, doesn’t stop her from being always connected to the social networks “which are a very important part of my job and which allow me to be always in touch with the people who really do the program”. The Twitter-users, of course.
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