How multiplatform entertainment could save your life

This is because whilst the last series featured a fairly run-of-the mill new media treatment, this one came packaged with an all-singing-all dancing multiplatform offering which attempted to do some genuinely groundbreaking things in terms of the channel's public service remit.

Here, not only could our viewers access all of the standard programme support material you'd expect for a TV show, but they could also explore a whole raft of new content specially created for the online and mobile platforms.

These included detailed interactive health calculator tools, educational games, detailed resources linking directly to NHS archives and a series of self-examination videos hosted by our TV experts which could be viewed either online or on your mobile phone.

Channel 4's support for this unusually beefy web treatment proved to be well founded as Embarrassing Bodies:Online turned out to be a success far beyond anything we could have expected. To date it has racked up: 3.5m page views, 500,000 video views, 3,500 comments and 12,000 mobile video downloads. It even briefly out-trumped the mighty Hollyoaks with its loyal web following.

Now, if you think about it, that is actually something pretty special when a brand that concerns itself with anal warts, halitosis, bent willies and toxic flatulence can out-perform a website full of glamorous fillies and buff beefcakes from Chester's finest fictional educational institution.

It also shows that sometimes entertainment can display reach and impact that "serious" and "official" resources can only dream of (I'm guessing that the regular NHS website would be pretty happy with regular traffic levels like these). Public-service broadcasting is indeed a wonderful and powerful thing.

What's more, for someone working in this strange, emerging field of broadcast new media, it is something that I can really point to as a tangible example of how a cross platform idea can work exceedingly well.

As an exercise in multi-platform commissioning, it truly delivered something that neither the online or TV aspects of the brand could deliver in isolation. For certain, a standard health website would never have got such a significant influx of new visitors without being promoted through a prime-time TV show.

Similarly a piece of public-service television would never have had such an opportunity to empower its viewers to take such personal and immediate action if it hadn't been for the tools that accompanied the show online.

What Embarrassing Bodies represented for me, therefore, is the holy grail of multiplatform programming: a TV and online package that proved to be far greater than the sum of its parts.

It's also an idea that sends out a clear and positive message for both TV and new media companies alike: For the traditionalists it shows that a well produced online treatment can not only support but actually enhance your broadcast output.

Meanwhile for the digital pioneers, it just goes to show that the power of the "water cooler" TV moment still holds sway in the 21st century and that by harnessing it you can bring larger audiences to your creations than ever before.

But web traffic and audience figures aside, if just one life has been saved by someone watching a TV show, playing an online game, tinkering with a health calculator or using a mobile video to examine their bits, then Maverick and Channel 4 will have truly done their jobs.