TV viewers get bigger say

– Cliffhanger endings where television audiences are left holding their breath for the next episode may never be the same again.

A new generation of social media-driven dramas are giving viewers a big say on plots.

In If I Were You, a huge new hit show in Spain, viewers vote on Facebook at the end of each open-ended 10-minute episode on the next turn in the teen story.

They are given the choice of two scenarios for the following week, with scriptwriters taking the one with the most likes.

Producers cast an Instagram star as the lead character of the series, which “massively advances a concept of audience interaction first pioneered by the New Zealand show Reservoir Hill,” said analyst Virginia Mouseler of research group The Wit.

That ground-breaking show won a Digital Emmy in 2010 by driving the plot of its Twilight meets Twin Peaks storyline with suggestions sent in by text.

The Norwegian TV show Where is Thea?, where a young woman desperately searches for her missing friend, has become a smash in Scandinavia by crossing dramas’ usual boundaries.

It teases episodes online with five-minute videos of Thea’s friend directly appealing for help to find her and in-character posts updating fans on her search.

“They have gone viral and it’s really quite impressive,” Mouseler told some of the world’s top TV executives at the Mipcom gathering in Cannes on the French Riviera.

The trend comes as Facebook announced that it would be showing an English version of another social network-savy Nordic hit, Skam (Shame), on its new video platform, Watch.

Simon Fuller, the man who brought the Spice Girls and the Pop Idol franchise to the world, is working on an international version of the show where the lives of a group of teenagers is continually updated on their Twitter and Instagram accounts.

The series has already become a social media phenomenon, blurring the lines between fiction and reality, with fans beyond Norway interacting with the stars online.

Snapchat versions of big US shows like The Voice and The Bachelor are also drawing teenagers back to their sofas to watch the original TV ones, according to Sean Mills of mobile content specialists Snap Inc. – AFP