The Selfie Soap That Nobody Watched
Every few years, a television network decides that the future of media is already happening without them, and they need to get there before it’s too late. The diagnosis is usually correct. The response is usually catastrophic.
RTL II is a German commercial channel best known for the kind of programming that makes you feel vaguely ashamed of the species—docu-soaps like Berlin – Tag & Nacht and Köln 50667, reality formats built around people having very ordinary problems in front of cameras. Its audience watches loyally, guiltily, in the millions. You don’t watch RTL II because you think it’s good. You watch it because it’s on and you’re tired.
When the channel decided to chase YouTube’s young audience through its digital offshoot RTL II YOU, the strategy was admirably direct: if kids are watching vertical video on Snapchat and spending money on Instagram, give them vertical video with a narrative arc. The result was a format they called "selfie soaps"—short-form shows shot in self-portrait mode, stories from daily city life, with names like Berlyn, Mjunik, and dailyCGN. Television trying to be YouTube with a broadcast safety net, which is the worst of both options.
The audience, apparently including people who watched Berlin – Tag & Nacht without complaint, wasn’t interested. Industry outlet DWDL reported that the digital chief overseeing the project, Christian Nienaber, left the channel, and two of the three shows—Berlyn and dailyCGN—were cancelled. Mjunik presumably followed.
YouTube worked because the people on it weren’t performing for a commissioning editor’s idea of what young people wanted—they were just themselves, and that specificity found its audience. Selfie soaps were a commissioning editor’s idea of authenticity, which is the kind of thing you only believe if you’ve never actually been online. The kids who spent all day watching real people on Snapchat weren’t going to sit through a scripted version of the same. They could tell the difference between a person and a character playing a person playing themselves. Television, apparently, still cannot.