Beating the Drums for ‘Convergence’

On a darkened stage, before a structure of cardboard and reflective ribbon, stands Ahmet Zappa, simultaneously projecting the impression of ceaseless motion and stationary coolness.

He’s waiting for a video featuring hip-hop stars Puff Daddy and Mase to finish unreeling for four game-show contestants on a stage 30 feet away. As soon as it is done, his image takes its place so he can pose the following question: “Mase recently announced his plans to quit performing music to do what?

“1. His own sitcom.

“2. Produce albums.

“3. Follow God.

“4. Write his memoirs.”

This is “WebRIOT,” which on the surface is the perfect game show for the MTV audience. Zappa, the younger son of the late rock legend Frank Zappa, is as smart and loopy as an MTV host should be: Think of a Regis Philbin from the Bizarro world. The videos and questions delve deep into the soul of the cable channel’s audience and are perfectly opaque to anyone else. And the 21 questions in each episode key off the screening of seven music videos.

But the show, which will premiere Monday at 5 p.m. on MTV, has one more unique element: It is designed to be played simultaneously by up to 25,000 online participants whose computers will be automatically synchronized with the broadcast episode.

“Just delivering this program is a success,” says Rick Holzman, vice president of MTV Online, whose department conceived the show and helped develop the necessary technology. MTV has guaranteed “WebRIOT” a 12-week run. That’s 60 shows, which are being taped on a sound stage at KCET’s production studios in Los Feliz.

Holzman’s hope is that “WebRIOT” will mark a watershed in the entertainment world’s search for “convergence”--the merging of television and the Internet that somehow produces new revenue for both. In this case, MTV sold ads for the online and on-air versions as a combined package. The company, a unit of Viacom, also hopes the game will attract visitors to its Web site and keep them returning.

Broadcast and cable programmers have been experimenting with various forms of convergence for several years. Viewers of National Football League games on ESPN, for example, can play interactive games on the cable channel’s Web site tied to each Sunday’s NFL play. Sony Entertainment, meanwhile, has developed online versions of its popular “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune” syndicated game shows for viewers who subscribe to the WebTV Internet service. And ABC Television is planning to produce an interactive enhancement for its hit show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” when the program returns to the air in January.

Holzman maintains that “WebRIOT” is the first program that allows home and studio players to participate in the same game without requiring any special equipment, such as the WebTV set-top box. And the MTV audience is in a sense an ideal herd of guinea pigs. Demographic surveys suggest that these viewers are overrepresented among the 18 million American homes that boast “co-location”--that is, a television and personal computer occupying the same room.

“These are people who are not waiting for technology,” says Tracy Fullerton, president and chief executive of Spiderdance, the Los Angeles Web design company that developed the basic technology to synchronize the online and studio elements of “WebRIOT.” “Our philosophy is to design for these people today, using the technology people already have in their homes.”

The online and on-air players, while playing the same game, are not exactly competing against one another. The players compete within their own group for prizes that range from gift certificates from the CDNow online music retailer to MP3 digital music players and, the season-ending grand prize, a new car. (There is also an all-online game not linked to the broadcast, which offers lesser prizes.) But the top online players get their screen names displayed periodically during the broadcast program.

The unique combination of online and on-air play presented a novel set of problems for the producers. One issue was how to forestall cheating by viewers on the West Coast whose satellite TV service might give them access to MTV’s East Coast channel--which would allow them to watch one game and play it with inside information when it screens three hours later for the West Coast.

The solution is to screen different shows on the East and West feeds each day. All 60 episodes will eventually run on each service, but in random order. The producers also programmed the software so that any viewer who plays two games in a single day to pump up his or her weekly or season totals, which are counted cumulatively for separate prizes, will lose the points from both.

Another set of technical problems derived from Holzman’s insistence that players with high-speed Web connections have no advantage over those with slow dial-up modems, which are more common.

Spiderdance solved that problem by devising a self-contained plug-in--a special program that players must download to their own computers--that checks off the right answers, compiles the players’ scores and transmits them to a central MTV computer periodically during the game.

The only remaining question is whether MTV’s system can handle the 25,000 contestants it expects to be playing online. Holzman says he is not concerned--the producers have used software to simulate that load and found it is “not a problem.” He contends that the real test of “WebRIOT” will be whether it spawns further convergence applications.

“This opens the gateway for lots of things,” he says, “and the next might not be a game show.”Times staff writer Michael Hiltzik can be reached at michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.