Seeing the Big Picture

22… 23…24

I can’t help it: I am hopelessly in love with 24. It had me from “Hello… is that a nuclear cloud over Los Angeles?"

24 has got so many things right-right-right, but especially its unapologetic approach to character development (and denouement) and the fact that it understands how its audience wants information: fast.

I heard the other day that – in the sixties – Laugh-In had to slow down its rapid-fire joke delivery… the fast pace actually made some viewers ill! By contrast, today’s viewer is “built for speed” and can’t get their info fast enough… and 24 understands that. I now find myself actually frustrated to watch slower-paced “action” shows. Are you listening, CBS?

I’m beside myself over the fact that I will be out of the country for the next three weeks and will miss the 24 season finale (which I’ll see on Tivo-delay.) But please… please… don’t tell me the ending…

(Are YOU listening, Howard...? ;-))

Newspaper of the Future

Today's New York Times has a terrific article on The Huffington Post called "Building a Brand with a Blog."  The piece notes:

"... The site is booming, fueled by rapid-fire news postings and more than 700 bloggers, most of whom you have never heard of.

The Huffington Post had more than 1.3 million unique visitors last month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, and more than 2 million in February.

The site now has deals with  Yahoo and AOL, is close to a deal with a video company, and has been approached by Barry Diller to help build a separate satiric news and entertainment site.

After investing about $2 million, a fraction of the $50 million it would take to create a magazine, The Huffington Post has become a well-known, oft-cited news media brand in the blink of an eye."

What is most fascinating about the article is that it misses a key fact... in fact, it neatly dodges it by  noting Diller's desire to have Huffington build a "satirical" site.  Huffington has accomplished what most newspapers have failed to do: she has created a daily news and opinion source on the Web that outperforms most daily newspapers.  She's done it by bringing together as many smart people as she could, then presenting the information in an easy-to-read format.  She has the wisdom not to stop at textual entries, but is moving to video. In short, she's moved in time with her audience.

MediaNews, are you paying attention?  Here's your Hail Mary template for the San Jose Mercury...

Will Success Spoil Tyson Ibele?

One harbinger of the future of advertising is here and it is working out of its bedroom.  Current TV is running the first viewer-created ad message (V-CAM), a permanent feature on the network. "Transformation" is a spot created for Sony by 19-year-old Tyson Ibele from Minneapolis. The spot features an animated montage of Sony products morphing into one another with synthesized music.

Sony Electronics will allow Current viewers to create at least half of its ads via V-CAM and they will add another V-CAM in the next few weeks. All spots are produced for Current on the network's V-CAM page at www.current.tv/vcam.

With user-generated content being the rage, it's high time some smart advertiser started monetizing it.  Expect to see more along this front... much more. In this competitive environment, turning to the grassroots to produce compelling ads really works from an economic and social networking standpoint.

One Degree of Separation

I just came out of a terrific meeting with the folks at SixApart, the blogging technology company that provides what's under the hood for THIS blog. 

We'll be working together on a new project mutliple-platform entertainment project that -- if I do say so myself -- will be one of the rare cases of (1) completely organic product placement and (2) a natural platform extension for television.

What's even cooler about this project is that they understood the concept right out of the gate and immediately started building on its potential... a far cry from the usual glazed-eye "what does that mean?" you hear so often from the new media people in Hollywood.

It's Not Sex, So It's OK

Friends of ours told us recently that they pitched a new reality-based show to a certain vulpine network.  The show was a takeoff on Cops that centered around real-life on-the-job footage of the  everyday heroics of firemen as they battle blazes and save lives.  During the pitch, our friends noted that nearly 100 firemen die each year in the line of duty.

"Wonderful!" enthused the net exec. "Will we be able to have at least one death per episode?"

Don't Ask - Don't Tell

And don't forget...

1. The Game Show Network doesn't want anyone to pitch game shows.
2. The Travel Channel doesn't want anyone to pitch travel shows.
3. PAX is still Christian, but... shhhhh ... don't tell anyone.
4. No more battered spouses for Lifetime.  And Oxygen is all about those bigger-than-life bold women (counter-programming Lifetime).
5. Discovery will only talk to you at certain times of the year and explicitly instructs not to ask what might interest them.
6. NO network will tell you what might interest them.

Wonderland?

Like Alice stepping through the looking-glass, working on the other side of the TV screen – as television producers -- is like operating in another world: a slightly-skewed reality that is simultaneously inspiring, challenging, hilarious and truly awful. We’ve met everyone from soporific Caterpillars to manic White Queens…and “taken meetings” that make the Mad Tea Party seem uncomfortably true-to-life. (“Have some wine.” “I don’t see any wine.” “There isn’t any.”)

Funny that we are working in reality television which – as everyone now knows – is about as real as cubic zirconium. But -- even like phony diamonds -- television has several facets, some of which are truly dazzling.  It's the dream of finding that real diamond that keeps us going --  day after day after day.

The purpose of this blog is allow you, dear reader, to wander through Wonderland with us.  Like us, you'll sometimes ask "Is this stuff  really happening?"  We promise you that -- whatever stories you read -- it will be 100% swear-on-our-mother's-lives true... 

God help us all.