TALKING DEAD Category 38-Outstanding Interactive Program

Each week on Talking Dead -- the highly popular live after-show for The Walking Dead -- a rotating lineup of guests, such as The Walking Dead’s showrunner, executive producers, cast members and celebrity fans, join host Chris Hardwick to discuss that week’s episode. For this most recent season of Talking Dead, AMC Digital also brought viewer opinion and sensibility directly onto the show via a free mobile app, Play Dead, which allowed fans to join the live discussion on the show and have their responses displayed on the broadcast in real-time. Hardwick and guests then incorporated viewers’ reactions into their conversation, sparking further discussion and interaction, making Talking Dead one of the most interactive live experiences on television.

Accessible across computer and mobile platforms as a simple web app, Play Dead allows home viewers to participate from their couch in snap polls and quizzes and see aggregated results instantaneously displayed on Talking Dead’s broadcast as a live graphics package. While the technology is key, how the shows weaves the interactivity into the live discussion in surprising and entertaining ways is what makes Play Dead so successful.

While asking fans clever and engaging questions -- some planned beforehand and others in quick response to the spontaneous discussion -- host Chris Hardwick and his guests see the results of fan voting, along with viewers, and then riff on the results. For example, in the Season 5 Talking Dead premiere, Hardwick asked viewers if they thought guest Conan O’Brien would be able to survive the zombie apocalypse. Viewers quickly predicted, via the app, that Conan would meet certain death. As the responses began tallying in real time, a surprised Conan pled his case to viewers, begging and then threatening them to change their minds, leading to one of the show’s most buzzed-about moments. In facilitating this sort of live exchange, Play Dead provides moments of authentic (and in this case, hilarious) audience interaction that deepens Talking Dead for all viewers, even those who are not using the Play Dead app directly themselves.

Other celebrity guests who have interacted with viewers using the Play Dead app include Slash, Keegan- Michael Key, Paul Feig, Kevin Smith and Yvette Nicole Brown.

Fans immediately took to the Play Dead experience and participated in over 1.4 million sessions throughout Season 5. What’s more, participants are able to play an active role in the evolution of Play Dead, as they are invited to provide feedback on the platform at the end of each episode. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and, as fans share what features they love, AMC Digital is able to evolve the platform for each subsequent episode for an optimal interactive experience.

Special note: Technically, the latest season of Talking Dead was Season 4. However, for The Walking Dead it was Season 5. Since Talking Dead is a companion show, we have used The Walking Dead’s season designation, to avoid confusion.

Links: http://www.amctv.com/shows/talking-dead http://www.amctv.com/shows/talking-dead/playdead

Video: http://www.amctv.com/talking-dead/videos/highlights-episode-501-talking-dead-conans-survivability http://www.amctv.com/talking-dead/videos/highlights-episode-505-talking-dead-eugenes-mullet

Entrants: Talking Dead/AMC Digital Megaphone