Move over Oscar®, it's time for the ... Dolly's©?

We've had the the Golden Globe Awards®, the Baftas®, and coming soon are the Oscar's®. Next, I propose, we should have the Dolly’s©. But first some background.

The (UK) Press Gazette this week ran a piece on the use of online video by newspapers in which they quote Guardian Unlimited's head of editor development Neil McIntosh saying something which has been a bit of a mantra for us here at the Journalism Leaders Programme:

The first question newspapers should be asking is 'why would you do this?'

...Asking users to "sit forward" and watch video online is a "big commitment", he says, but the rise of YouTube has shown that there is a huge market for "good, gripping video in short bursts".

McIntosh argues that this has been almost completely ignored by other newspapers. "They are often producing very long things or content that is not very gripping at all, or full of stock images of men in suits walking through revolving doors. That works perfectly well on broadcast television but when you're demanding that the user pay attention for short bursts, you've got to do better than that," he says.

There is no inherent advantage in being a newspaper trying to do video. The only reason why users will come to us, or anyone else, is that we're telling a story as well as, if not better than other places, or in a different way. It's something which we've seen with the success of our podcasts — they are strongest in areas in which we can
actually deliver something which is different from the BBC — and let's face it they're our biggest rival in all of this."

Back to the awards. It will probably be a while before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (and the like) include a ‘Best Use of IPTV by M(ain)S(tream)M(edia)’ category. So, in the spirit of the ‘citizen journalism/consumer power/we the media etc, I propose the Dolly's© (in memory of the cloning pioneer). With that, I’m taking suggestions for:

1. Award Categories ("Best Immitation of BBC news bulletin"?)
2. Nominees for each category (see above)

Heck, everything's still up for grab. If you don't like the Dolly's© and you've got an alternative suggestion, let me know too.

[In the meantime, I'm going to try to find out more about another quote in Zoe Smith's piece:

Research by Informa Telecoms and Media has found that the trend towards online TV and video reflects wider cultural changes. The company predicts that revenue generated from online TV and video services will rise from $42m in 2006 to $364m in 2009, rocketing to $708 in 2012.

Got many questions about this, including wanting to know the criteria used to generate these numbers. Answers?]