Thursday, April 06, 2006

TV beginning to realize that blogs can compliment programs

Four months ago I posted on BMA that it was time for TV to start integrating blogs into their websites as a way to provide additional information on series, and to interact with fans. According to this article in today's USA Today, it seems that the networks are finally catching on.

Shame they didn't try this for Reunion, I still think that was the perfect show to support character-blogs.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As I've said more than once, why aren't they listening to you? Someone could be making $ from your ideas.

Mack Collier said...

Dunno Andrea, but you're gonna be the blogger that's in even higher demand once Alexa finally bumps New Millenium PR into the Top 100,000. ;)

J.D. said...

I swear to you, Mack, if you and I had a PR firm together with you handling the marketing and me handling the production, we could make some great money.

As you know with our Reunion discussion four months ago, I totally agree with you on this. I'll grant that there are about five thousand other things they did wrong with Reunion (including not showing us the final 4 episodes!!!) but blogs with TV are unbelievable.

Take American Idol for instance. They've added a feature to their website where registered users can create their own blogs, and guess what those blogs are largely about...that's right the show. Those blogs have sprung up because they realized that people like me and MJ were blogging about it anyway, so they incorporated them (and now they're turning that around and selling ads to be placed on the blog pages, so they're not only marketing themselves, they're making a nice tidy profit on the side as well.) They already had a steady following on the message board and forums, and the blogs have kicked it up another notch.

They've also done areas with fan recaps that are heavily travelled. I cross-post my A.I. blog entries over there, and they get at least 3000 views a day, which is about triple what I'm getting now at MR.

If you want a good model of how television and blogging can go together, www.televisionwithoutpity.com is a good place to look.