Posts Tagged ‘channel 4’

I admire two people. One is dead and one alive. The dead one is the great American showman PT Barnum. He is my muse. Why? Discovering his legacy influenced my thinking on the power of the crowd enormously. Barnum’s majestic stunts were works of genius – they went viral long, long before that word sneaked into modern parlance. He was so influential that people tried to attribute quotes to him that denigrated his approach. He never said: “There’s a sucker born every minute” but he did say: “Every crowd has a silver lining.”

Way back in 2003 I scribbled a note about another great virtuoso; one who is very much alive. He is Derren Brown. Derren Brown mesmerises me. On the occasions I have been lucky enough to see him perform live, I have marvelled at his persuasive power. I felt his showmanship was so important, I defended it after it attracted negative press when he staged a controversial Russian Roulette stunt on Channel 4. The media called foul, but I believed it was a masterstroke that confirmed his showmanship and considerable talent.

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I was asked to comment on the fallout from Tiger Woods’s bad week in the press by the Guardian last week – the resulting article appears in today’s Media section and online under the headline In Need of a Tigerish Attorney. I took a critical look at the way he and his lawyer, Mark NeJame, are handling the story. Here’s an excerpt:

“Tiger Woods’s nasty bump on the head after his car’s tussle with a fire hydrant has rendered the golfer mostly speechless. It’s all very well that he’s admitted “transgressions” and muttered an apology, but at the heart of the press release he put out is a cry for silence and privacy. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the Orlando attorney Mark NeJame, who has made his name defending drug offenders and people accused of murder, is the man behind this strategy. The ‘Johnnie Cochran of Central Florida’ has thrown his weight behind the Tiger Woods brand at the formerly squeaky-clean golfer’s darkest hour.

“Attorneys are the new breed of tough image protector – PR spin technicians are losing out to hard-nosed lawyers. But will NeJame’s strategy help his client to regain his flawless veneer of celebrity? Woods’s ignominy is fast becoming one of 2009’s top trending topics and has exposed the media-shy golfer to the dark side of ‘improperganda’.”

To read the full article, click here.

I was also asked for my opinion on the Tiger Woods affair and whether or not he can rebuild his brand’s reputation by Channel 4 News – to read the article, click here.

I hear that Channel 4 has signed bed shop Dreams to sponsor Celebrity Big Brother, which returns to our screens next month for the first time since 2007.

Celebrity Big Brother was “rested” last year following the Shilpa Shetty racism row, so it will be interesting to find out if the show can still interact with the Great British unwashed, drive controversy and keep the sponsor away from the tagline “Bad Dreams”.

The show has, in the past, had controversy embedded at its heart but Channel 4 are going to have to be more careful this time round whilst bearing in mind that it would be a PR nightmare if the show is simply boring and risks courting the accusation that the show sends people to sleep and thus has the perfect sponsor.

The Independent reported yesterday on the decline in ratings of Richard and Judy since their move to cable and asked me to comment. Here’s an extract of the article, entitled Turning off Richard and Judy.

“They have spent the best part of two decades as Britain’s most unlikely TV power couple. Now it seems the fortunes – and ratings – of the husband-and-wife team are dropping fast, despite once having A-list guests queue to appear with them and a lucrative book club that could make or break an author.

“Since the couple’s move last month from Channel 4 to the cable channel Watch, viewing figures for Richard and Judy’s New Position have slumped disastrously, even by cable channel standards. The prime-time show attracted just 20,000 viewers for one recent broadcast, plummeting from 149,000 for the much-heralded first show at the beginning of October. The average is just 47,000 compared with 2.5 million in their Channel 4 heyday.

“Mark Borkowski, a publicist and PR expert, said: ‘Personality brands occasionally have to be rested and try to create some nostalgia for that person to come back. Some of the best television formats have been those brave enough to cut personalities off in their prime, rather than suffer the ’slings and arrows’ when they’ve stretched for too long.’”

To read the full article, click here.