Could delivering online content be the way to find treasure at the end of the rainbow? We’re all aware of its potential, but how it can be exploited?

It’s a quarter of a century since Channel 4 opened the floodgates to the growth of the independent production sector. Many indies are now bigger and richer than anyone thought possible, and arguably they are the core of the television industry.
In contrast, some of the broadcasters are beginning to resemble shop windows for the formats of any production company with the cash flow to put them there.

But there was an exciting time in the mid-1980’s when it seemed that anyone with a commissionable programme idea could put together a production company and get it made. It might not have made them rich, but they were part of a thrilling cultural movement.

Are we on the brink of a new gold rush of screen ideas and can-do attitude, but online this time? I think it’s happening all around us already. Much like the early days of C4, mass audiences are irrelevant to successful online production, but it matters that your audience really cares about what you are showing them.

Unlike the controlled cultural experiment of early C4, there is no commissioning oversight for this internet Klondike – it’s perfect anarchy out there today. But bear in mind that in its first years, a good proportion of C4 producers, and indeed some of its commissioning editors, had never made a TV programme before. Some of their output was fresh and delightful, and some of it was unwatchable dross.

Last week, the Internet Advertising Bureau claimed that internet advertising spend in the UK (at £1,752 million per annum) had overtaken broadcast advertising spend (at £1,639 million) for the first time. The commercial broadcasters’ advertising body, Thinkbox, has disputed the figures, but the message remains the same – there is money to be made online for programme makers like you with television production skills.

That money isn’t just to be found with adverts and sponsors, which feels like a very old-fashioned analogue TV way to go about things. I will happily bet £100 that at least some ProductionBase members reading this column today will earn a very good living from web TV over the next couple of decades and become senior figures in that new industry. When broadcast television converges with internet offerings, I predict that those online creatives will hold the high ground.

So how can you make a living out of online TV? Some people are doing it already, and they aren’t going to win an Emmy for their efforts. Take the San Diego based website Love Or Hate Debate, where a mother and her daughters have set up their own version of QVC. They review products, people can buy the product on the spot, and the family take payment for advertising those products. It’s terrible TV, but it works.

Mass audiences are not essential, but you can be more ambitious with your plans for big audiences and big subjects if you have the right idea. A London-based company called Playfish was set up two years ago. It runs social games online, encouraging players to play each other in real time. It launched a game on Facebook last year called Pet Society that is now played by around 17 million people every month.

What would you do with an audience of 17 million? Frankly, the challenge isn’t technical, there are already platforms other than YouTube such as Vimeo, Blip TV and FilmAnnex which are there to provide a platform for TV production.

But whatever is going to work, you are going to have to involve your audience in an active way, and you will have to help them talk to each other. You can’t expect them to just sit on the sofa and absorb your offering, you have to make them part of it.

Who will win me that £100 bet? I can’t wait to find out. They will probably pay our wages within the next five years.