Wednesday, November 10, 2004
#2: ET for the Masses
Have you ever watched Entertainment Tonight? Well it seems that most of the US population does at some point or another. I have not watched much tv given the evolution of Tivo, Digital Cable, DVD's and having some nice LCD and Plasma screens around. However, I was thinking, what would get me and most of the rest of the US public watching a show like this? Is it a hotter chick, a hotter guy? Nah, well maybe, but that gets old and the mgmt is put into a continual 'upgrade' situation. The upgrading becomes very costly and it is hard to find the right degree of pretty vs intelligence. I think in general the content is decent, you can tell a lot of research has gone into discovering, tracking and documenting our beloved idols, with little harassment. So how do you twist ET a bit and make it more interesting, retain the valuable content, while keeping costs down or even greatly reducing costs?
You pitch the hosts/anchors, sorry Mary Hart and Mark Steines. And you open these 2 positions up to the up-and-coming actors. (I think you can still retain the commentaries of Leonard Maltin and the others for their parts.) So now you get musitians, artists, actors and directors into the scene and give them a shot at the tv viewing population. For these folks the face-time is key and it gives an avenue for discovery of talent. ET could even drive utilization of their web-site by posting a poll for feedback on the anchors. I would also give each anchor a 3-5 minute spot to talk about their 'topic'. So a bit more open than usual and it would entice the anchors, hence reducing the cost.
The only issue I see is attracting enough interest from the up-and-comers to fill 6 nights a week. Ok, first off how much of this can we American's take? Maybe this is a spin-off to a Friday night only show, keeping the effort down to once a week until enough traction can be made. Is this too much like MTV? Well what has MTV become? Geez, all I want is a music video once in a while (don't get me started.)
Hmm, I might even start watching ET or visiting the site to see who is coming up next with this sort of model.
You pitch the hosts/anchors, sorry Mary Hart and Mark Steines. And you open these 2 positions up to the up-and-coming actors. (I think you can still retain the commentaries of Leonard Maltin and the others for their parts.) So now you get musitians, artists, actors and directors into the scene and give them a shot at the tv viewing population. For these folks the face-time is key and it gives an avenue for discovery of talent. ET could even drive utilization of their web-site by posting a poll for feedback on the anchors. I would also give each anchor a 3-5 minute spot to talk about their 'topic'. So a bit more open than usual and it would entice the anchors, hence reducing the cost.
The only issue I see is attracting enough interest from the up-and-comers to fill 6 nights a week. Ok, first off how much of this can we American's take? Maybe this is a spin-off to a Friday night only show, keeping the effort down to once a week until enough traction can be made. Is this too much like MTV? Well what has MTV become? Geez, all I want is a music video once in a while (don't get me started.)
Hmm, I might even start watching ET or visiting the site to see who is coming up next with this sort of model.
