At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, TikTok UK boss Dominic Burns told Deadline how the social media behemoth had deepened ties with the TV and film industry with the launch of its Spotlight tool in the UK.
Today, Burns detailed to the British Screen Forum (BSF) how some of the biggest British shows of the past few months have been helped along by Spotlight, which works with studios and broadcasters to provide data and analytics on what is popping on the platform.
Burns said BBC smash Celebrity Traitors was able to take advantage of this and draw a younger, more social media-friendly audience to what has been one of the biggest TV shows of the year.
“It feels like [Spotlight] had an impact in terms of bringing a younger audience to that show and helping what was already going to be a massively successful format,” said Burns on a BSF panel titled ‘Setting the Scene’. “That came indirectly from TikTok, directly back to the show.”
Social media was a big driver to Celebrity Traitors and the BBC focused much of its energy on companion content to the camp-y, viral series, which was won by comedian Alan Carr in what was one of the most dramatic moments in the show’s history. A second season is already in the offing, along with a fourth season of the civillian version.
TikTok’s Spotlight tool has been live in the U.S. for more than a year, providing an insight into fandoms and what is driving conversation. “Everyone was aware there are these viral moments on social that can have an impact on audiences for TV and film,” added Burns today of how Spotlight helps Celebrity Traitors and beyond. “We’ve tried to directly connect and attribute those views and videos directly to pushing value for those businesses. So we can provide data and analytics in realtime on what that fandom looks like and can directly link those videos from the fans which represent 95% of that conversation, versus the 5% coming from the offical sources.”
Burns said the ByteDance-owned platform is looking to “iterate and develop” acros news and sport over time “so it becomes more direct in the months and years to come.”
BFI audiences director Ben Luxford flagged a real-world example with heartwrenching Andrew Garfield-Florence Pugh movie We Live in TIme, which triggered a viral TikTok trend of audiences on both sides of the pond filming themselves before the movie and after the movie and trying to prove they weren’t crying.
“TikTok was a massive reason the [BFI-run] London Film Festival was so successful this year,” added Luxford. “They were media partners and brought a lot to it from the experiential side. Social media was always an aspect but there is now an urgency to that trend.”
Burns said TikTok has no plans to directly finance content but its role is “supporting and enabling that conversation.”
He has been spending his time schmoozing top execs, telling the BSF this morning that “getting closer to the TV and film industry is so important for us.”
“We see U.S. and UK content travelling and providing IP that fans are expressing their fandom and love for the world over,” he added. “That’s why the UK screen industry holds such an important place for us.”
Unsurprisingly, Burns touch on the hot topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and how AI is helping TikTok with content moderation, within limits and with a certain degree of nuance.
He said AI is playing a “valuable role” in helping TikTok moderate offensive content at an “incredible pace,” but this requires help from humans.
“There are nuanced issues that can come through from content that AI doesn’t yet understand,” he added. “This
is maybe offensive to a particular community. So in moderation it is an absolute combination of the technology and the human that makes it work.”
Burns was speaking on a BSF panel before the likes of Richard Curtis and Prime Video UK boss Andrew Bennett.
