As the menu of media outlets and opportunities continue to grow, there's still room for the ambitious and artistic to make their mark on the forefront of technology.
But more important than creativity and foresight, says Blur drummer-turned-TV executive Dave Rowntree, is a touch of ego.
"The basic motivation for doing this project," explains Rowntree when asked about his new made-for-mobile technology animation series Empire Square, "came from the fact that I and the other two co-creators are megalomaniacs and we all wanted our own TV show."
Rowntree and his creative partners, Ant Cuachi and Lloyd Salmons, both former EMI record label execs, originally wanted to do a children's TV show, but, as Rowntree puts it, "That world is so crazy--we didn't want to get near it."
Fortunately, there was an alternative. At that time, mobile phone companies were expanding their offerings--or, at least, their offering capabilities. "They were complaining that they had this wonderful platform but no content," says Rowntree.
"We heard their cry and decided to take advantage of this gap in the market. We went for the rude and disgusting market, and that was the genesis of Empire Square."
The result was a series of three-minute phone clips.
Unfortunately, when Rowntree and his mates went to the mobile phone companies to sell their idea, nobody was ready to buy. "We found to our horror that none of them were actually ready to distribute it," he says, noting that he was probably not the first person to run into this issue.
Undaunted, Rowntree and his partners put Empire Square on DVD and pitched it to TV stations, and Britain's Channel 4 picked up the series to run during their Friday night
music programming slot. "That slot had no branding," Rowntree says, "so they used Empire Square to brand it.
It helped give their slot a look, while making us look bigger than we were."
At the end of the first season, the three-minute episodes were tied together into a clip show that was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. "That's where we bumped into folks from fuse," recalls Rowntree, "and the rest, as they say, is history."
Purporting themselves to be "the nation's only music-centric, viewer-influenced television network," Canadian-based fuse features music videos, concerts and artist interviews.
To transition their "ultra-small-screen" program to a TV screen, Rowntree and his team brought on writers who could help them connect with fuse's audience.
And just what kind of a profit is the show producing? Rowntree says it's difficult to determine what its annual revenue is because the show doesn't have its own merchandising yet. "It's more similar to making a record than to making soap powder," he suggests.
"TV programs are like fashion items, and people need to discover it themselves. If you try to force it down their throats, they resent it and fight against it."
To help expose people to the show, Rowntree plans to keep Empire Square true to its roots through a series of mini-episodes, ring tones and other tie-ins.
FuseMobile will also offer clips, and fuse OnDemand will allow fans to view complete episodes whenever they want to.
"With all of these things," Rowntree observes, "you can be as involved as you wanna be." And while he's sure that fuse would love it if he moved into their offices permanently, Rowntree is still committed to Blur, which takes up a good deal of his time and energy: "My full-time job here is directing the voice actors and the animators," he explains, "but Blur still takes over."
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