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Gernot Kulis, Comedian Ö3 #33 Can the Callboy work digitally? With all the cat videos, selfies and do-it-yourself tips that the web transports non-stop, the digital revolution brings with it above all the question of quality. Is it so entertaining that I also share it, re-count it, call it up on demand or tune in to the radio live?
Ö3 Callboy has a mission: to make life funnier, and has been doing so for over 20 years. The content mix combines quality, humour, regionality and satirical observation. Issues dominate the country and are to be dealt with: Corona was and is a fixture in the news, but the everyday madness of homeschooling is on people's minds and a call to the ministry about the son's "Corona test", which hopefully comes out positive, is an outlet for everyday life to take things more lightly. When that call is then posted online, listeners can respond to it and post other additions, it creates an exchange that didn't exist for me 20 years ago. In comedy, we increasingly involve the audience, many suggestions come from the listeners, so barriers between audience and comedian fall, but also give room for attack. The discourse is increasing about how far comedy can go, what is humour and what influence does the immediate listener feedback have on daily comedy. While the distribution of comedy used to be linear - it was played on the radio, then offered on CD a year later - the channels have changed fundamentally. With the advent of digital technology, there are many more options available, the range of people who connect with Ö3 comedy is increased - only the attention span is short - the punchline has to sit, be short and on point. Social media outlets are important because that increases the talk-about factor. Good comedy gets shared, ends up in Whats-App groups, on Facebook pages or Insta-stories and this strengthens the brand.
Corona has also changed the way we communicate, the phone call has become a video chat. Is the Ö3 callboy becoming a Facetime call, is a disguised voice no longer enough, is it a disguise to mislead the victim? Does the future of radio comedy consist of combining image and sound and does it become content. Will the radio comedy writer become the multimedia platform manager who delivers the audio for the radio, makes the video available on the radio app in TikTok style, puts on the live performance on stage and seeks the exchange with the followers on social media, and from this gleans new ideas. Sound becomes image, image becomes video. Radio creates the Video Star. And now I have to get back to work: "Siri, call the ministry ...".