Is this a first?

A comment, made in the Livestation chat room attached to the Al Jazeera English live coverage of the second Obama/McCain debate, which was being streamed on Livestation, was played out live on TV as the discussion continued. An example of instant, live, interactive TV on a global scale.

As the debate and subsequent discussion continued, between 30 and 50 viewers were watching and commenting in real time, offering their take on what was being said and adding differing regional and cultural perspectives, thereby broadening the debate beyond the usual confines of such events.

The Al Jazeera English head of new media, Russell Merryman, was in the chat room feeding selected commends directly to the producers of the live TV output.

At 0301 GMT the studio used two viewer comments, one from the Your Views section of the Al Jazeera English website, and another from one of viewers in the live chat on Livestation.

Note: The caption on the screen-grab above says ‘Email’. This is was a simple error, due to the comments being fed through by email and the speed of the operation. Next time it will read ‘Live Chat’.

Livestation viewers were able to see the impact of that discussion on the live TV output, as it happened and in the same player.

That affect, of seeing a comment being used on live TV from an integrated live chat room, caused such excitement that the quality of the chat discussion immediately increased.

It was live, buzzing and a great example of engaging a global audience in new and exciting ways.

What’s more, the viewers saw that they could be seen, heard and responded to, not in the form of a solo text or email from one person, isolated and viewing alone being read out by a presenter, but as someone who was part of a new, Al Jazeera English online news community, who had gathered to watch and chat together.

It was a case of the old ‘broadcast at’ model meeting the ‘engage with’ and taking it to a new ‘global audience participation’ model.

Instant, live, interactivity empowering the online community to have a direct, live, instant impact on TV programme output?

Has this happened before?