Jonathan Ross on storytelling, virtual reality, the power of social media and meeting a student Jonathan Ive
In the latest in a series of interviews exploring pure creativity, and how it is conceived, nurtured and grown, The Drum interviews broadcaster Jonathan Ross.
Taking place at What is Creativity partner Millennial Media’s recent IAB Digital Upfronts 2015 event, the interview digs into Ross’s views on storytelling, the impact of technologies like virtual reality and 3D on the film and TV industry, and the positive impact of social media.
On the impact of new viewing behaviours encouraged by the moves of internet companies like Amazon and Netflix releasing entire TV series on the same day, Ross believes this is “the only sensible way to behave. There’s a new audience that can’t understand why they have to wait a week for a new episode of a series.”
Terrestrial TV, he says will need to move more towards live event programming in order to keep viewers engaged “rather than trying to control the audience’s pace of viewing.”
Ross cites the Apple Watch as one of the technologies he is most excited about and describes how his long relationship with Apple begun after meeting Jonathan Ive, then still a student, when he was an audience member at a show Ross hosted in the US.
“Years later I received in the post on my birthday an iPod shuffle. I thought it was a knock off, so I called Apple and said I’d received it from someone called Jony. To which Apple said it was a product not even due out for 6 months. So always be nice to students is the lesson from that,” he says.
The interview also covers his views on how the “authenticity” of the new breed of YouTube stars could be affected by appearing on his ITV talk show, how digital is reinventing comics, another of his big passions, and the limited impact he believes VR and 3D will have on the film industry.
The full Jonathan Ross interview launches the What is Creativity hub on The Drum. The hub features all the interviews from the series so far including actor Robert Llewellyn, most widely known as Red Dwarf’s Kryten; singer and composer David McAlmont, music producer and Asian/R’n’B fusion pioneer Rishi Rich; and Shoreditch House and the Mondrian hotel designer Tom Dixon OBE.