I used to tell people that I didn't watch “reality TV” shows, never watched even one minute of Survivor, or Big Brother, or Jersey Shores, or even Dancing With The Stars, or any of them. I find them worse than not interesting, I find them embarrassing, even odious. Then I went to a family reunion in Moab, Utah and found out that one of my cousins, Jim West, had a popular reality TV show, “Wild West Alaska,” on Animal Planet. My opinion about reality TV changed that instant though I still never watched even one minute of one, even Jim's. This all leads up to the irony of my decision to do my own reality TV show. I'd be the only licensed doctor, attorney, engineer, accountant & patent agent in some poor, Podunk community the 50th ranked State, Missouri; reality TV show watchers would eat that shit up.
I remember reading a scam about reality TV show contestant advertisements that charged people to “apply” but were totally bogus ways to steal their money. There's got to be something like that for creating your own reality TV show, I thought, so I Googled it and, sure enough, there's a dozen websites where you can supposedly pitch your show idea which are then reviewed by reality TV show producers. I also Googled if these were a scam; an unequivocal yes, so I clicked the first one on the list and looked into it.
It's pretty much what you'd expect: I picked my genre, posted my pitch, paid my money, $150, and waited with baited breath for a Hollywood or New York producer to call. The website was neatly done, with the clever twist of showing the color-coded “status” of your project. I called my cousin, who was courteous but incredulous:
“Hi Martin;
Sounds like you wear a lot of hats. Moving to Missouri to open shop? Doing a tv show takes a whole lot of time that will make it very difficult to operate any business and until you get 5 years on the air they are not going to pay you squat. You will make a lot more money if you just focus on any one of your trades. I will tell you the advise I got " get what you can and take what you can get"
Good luck, Jim”
But Jim was wrong, within 1 week, I got an email telling me that my show idea was getting some activity, and that I should go check it out. Turns out Neon Television had downloaded my pitch idea 3 times in about 10 minutes; they must really be interested, I thought. Not only that, because now there was some interest in my show, I was given the opportunity to promote my show to these enthusiastic producers by paying more. I'll tell you what, I was tempted; my credit card was burning a hole in my pocket, but I'm a conscientious guy, so I Googled “Neon TV,” and it turns out they're legitimate, and even have a couple reality shows, and you know, my show seemed a lot better than the logging one, plus think of all the women I could get... But, dammit, the big head took over, I had a soft chuckle, and put the credit card back in my wallet. However, about a month later, another great opportunity came in my email, “National TV show looking for entrepreneurs for upcoming season.” Now that's got to be on the up-n-up, right? I wonder how much it costs to apply?
Reality TV Show
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Martin Hash
- Posts: 18245
- Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:02 pm
Reality TV Show
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Shamedia, Shamdemic, Shamucation, Shamlection, Shamconomy & Shamate Change
