Oliver Driver: Shortland Street producer on the new launch campaign designed to revitalise the series

Shortland Street: New Blood is set to kick off this coming Monday - and this new era is utilising social media to boost viewing numbers.

The new series will air three nights a week, with new episodes streaming live on TikTok at the same time it airs on TVNZ 2 and TVNZ+.

The TikTok stream will feature live Q & A sessions, as well as in the moment reactions from the cast.

Series producer Oliver Driver says they needed to adapt to a changing media market.

"We're on the TVNZ platform, this is the same platform that has The Day of the Jackal and all these other great international shows that we're watching. Quite often now, you're going from watching a show that has incredibly high production value with film stars playing the leads - and after that, you'll turn on Shortland Street. We have to do everything we can to increase our storytelling, our visuals."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
A new era of Shortland Street starts tomorrow night. Not
only is the show now a three day week format,
but it will be split up into four mini seasons
and innovative launch campaign is also going to see the
first episode live stream on TikTok. Ahead of the launch
of Shortland Street New Blood, show producer Oliver Driver is

(00:33):
with me now, Hi, Oliver, Hello, Right, the new era
begins tomorrow night. We've got this three day week format
and the switch to the mini series. How different has
this made the show?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
I think anytime there's change, you've been look at it
as either an opportunity for innovation or doing the same
thing you've done before. And so when we found out
that we were going to go to three nights a week,
we wanted to try and really think about how the
audience would experience those three nights without the other two,
without a sort of constant feel of Shortland Street. Is

(01:07):
the weekends being the weekends. People are used to Shorten
Street just being there every night, and that's kind of
changed to being, you know, something that you're going to
watch three times in a week and then you're gonna
have to wait four days until you get to watch
it again. And so with that in mind, what we've
tried to do is just sort of sort of blend
our show with more of a procedural type show where
you have a sort of beginning, in a middle and

(01:27):
an end story that a story that has a beginning,
a middle, and an end across those three episodes, so
that at the end of the third episode you sort
of feel like you've had a complete Shortland Street meal,
if you like, with still cliffhangers and you know, stories
progressing on each week, but giving it a bit more
of that kind of feeling of satisfaction on a Wednesday

(01:48):
rather than always my Thursday. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Do you think the audiences will feel a definite shift.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, I think they will. I mean we've also tried
to kind of increase the medical and to push a
more towards realism and to you know, do some more
work around that, but really want to kind of tell
character based stories with guests, and so what people will
see is like a guest coming in, a patient coming
in on the Monday, We're figuring out what's wrong with them.
Things go left, right and sideways as they always do

(02:18):
with the soap opera, and then that story gets resolved
on the Wednesday, while our characters vives loves, cheating, ambitions,
all of those sorts of things they carry on throughout
the whole year.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
As always sounds like quite a positive thing, actually, Ollie,
that it's given you an opportunity, you guys, an opportunity
to sort of, as you say, sort of craft the
storylines a little bit.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Differently, absolutely and constantly adapt, you know, adapt to buy right.
And you have to kind of be looking at how
we watch television now. It's no longer people sitting there
going from home and away to shortened streets. Two and
a half men, we're on TV and Z platform. This
is the same platform that as The Jackal and all
of these other great international shows that we're watching. And

(02:59):
quite often now you're going from watching a show that
has incredibly high production values with film stars playing the leads,
and then after that you're an on shorten street and
you have to do it. We have to do everything
we can to try and increase our storytelling, our visual
what it looks like on screen, what it sounds like

(03:20):
on screen, to try and get the audience a feeling
that they're not watching something substantially different to all the
other things they love.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
From a behind the scenes perspective, how has it changed
for the cast and crew.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
They're busier, good, and they're working harder because and the
stories have changed because we are putting more of an
emphasis on guest stories as well that reflect how our
cast are feeling and what they're going through, much in
the same way that if you watch a show like
New Amsterdam or Gray's Anatomy, within one episode there'll be

(03:52):
a complete story arc of something that happens, so you're
not left you know, you have a satisfying kind of
journey on that experience. So we're doing the same thing.
So for our cast, there's a lot more guest actors,
which is great. It's always good to get excited by
new actors coming in. And we have a bunch of
newcast as well that have come in that are generating
stories around them as well, which is always good too,

(04:14):
because they're playing inexperienced doctors and surgeons, and that gives
you a huge amount of storytelling potential. Because all of
our other ones are really really good, you're just basically
watching people be brilliant at the time, whereas watching people
fail and struggle is also really great to humor. All
of a.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
TV and SAID have announced the first episode will be
streamed live on TikTok and the stream will be split
screen featuring cast members during doing a Q and A
and giving live in the moment reactions. Was this something
driven by TV and Z or the Shortened Street team?

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Both TV and Z and South Perfic Pictures, who are
the products company that make Shorten Street, are really interested
and excited about trying to engage with audiences in all
the different ways that we can, and that means being
open to and excited about other platforms and the way
that people consume media now. So I think we've been
doing a lot together as a network and a production

(05:04):
company kind of in locksteps to go how do we approach,
how do we do it and brainstorming on those things,
and this is one of the ones that came out
of that, and we're really excited about the idea of it.
You know, we're continuing to try and push the innovation
as much as we can. And the other thing we're doing,
which I think is really exciting, is that we've partnered
with Play It Strange, which is a young songwriting competition,

(05:25):
and we're now using the music that they produce for
within our show so that we get to have kind
of songs you know that that montages or things like that,
and to help launch the careers of young musicians.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
And I heard about that. I think that's a brilliant idea.
This interaction that you're going to get from TikTok is
that important now? Is this the kind of innovation that
creators and broadcasters have to be thinking about to kind
of get the cut through?

Speaker 3 (05:57):
I think we have to be thinking about how it's
changing and how people are consuming media, and TikTok's massive,
and the way that people watch shows is very different.
It's not the entire family sitting around the TV together
watching one screen with their meals on their laps anymore.
It's everybody's in a different room. And so how mum
and Dad consume shorton Street as compared to how the

(06:19):
nineteen seventeen thirteen year old's consume it is completely different,
and we want to be there with them and try
to make it as fun and enjoyable for them. The
other thing we've sort of done with the show beginning
this year. Because it's a three episode format, we've tried
to structure it that it's a really good way in
for people into the show, and that even if you
haven't watched, if you've been watching, if you haven't been

(06:39):
watching it regularly, or you haven't seen it in years,
that this Monday it's a great entry point into it.
And so we're trying to do as much as we
can as well to kind of bring back laps viewers
or talk to viewers who maybe think Shorton Street isn't
what it is now and still had a kind of old,
soapy feel.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Oliver, are you confident that with the changes you've made,
we're going to see Shortland Street on our screens well
into the future.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Absolutely. I mean, I think you know, there's nothing else
in our country that shows us on screen, you know,
multiple times a week that allows us to see ourselves
and hear our voices, and that we've got a great
range of television shows and movies now, but they all
come in for six weeks and then they go away again,
Whereas this has the ability to just constantly show us

(07:24):
ourselves on screen, and I think that's vital.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Oliver Driver, thank you, so much for your time and
look enjoy the launch tomorrow night. Best of luck, Thanks
enjoy watching it. Make sure you watch That was Olive Driver,
producer of Shortland Street. The new season Shortland Street New
Blood starts tomorrow seven pm on TV.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
And For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin,
listen live to News Talks it B from nine am
Sunday or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio