Shooting Gallery Has Jumped The Shark

[PegLeg45]

Call me a gun geek.......

OK, GUN GEEK.




 


            

[Tyler Durden]

The problem is that we live in a world of ratings...we did exactly that with COWBOYS, for exactly the reasons you stated, and we got our head handed to us on a platter. I got a lot of "cut the boring crap" email. I thought the shows were darned interesting or I wouldn't have signed off on them.

It's sort of like the "kids shooting" conundrum...EVERYONE says they want to see more young people shooting on TV. The lowest ratings I've ever gotten have been on youth shooting shows. That tells me that while we may honestly be interested in getting more young people to come into the shootingsports — and we are — we don't want to see them do it.

Years back, I did write  an executive summary, the primary selling tool for television shows, of a traveling shoot show, but it focused on special events, exotic competitions, etc. I may yet be able to sell it.

I once had a charming lunch with Sidney Biddles Barrow, the so-called and quite notorious Mayflower Madam. In the course of that lunch, I asked her what she could tell me that I didn't know about men and sex. She laughed and said when she got into the "business," she asked all her men friends what they wanted in a prospective lover. The overwhelming answer was, "wholesome," "freckles," "red-haired," "cute," "country girl"...you get the picture. So she said she combed the Midwest and for just those type of women, recruited them and...they simply couldn't get work. No guy was interested in these wholesome, milk-fed beauties. I realized, Ms. Barrow said, that I had asked the wrong question. It's not "what men want," but "what men will pay for." And in the end, men will pay for "blonde and boobs."

That lunch has served me well in the television business...LOL!

Michael B

Major thread drift ahead.... Hollywood madaam Heidi Fleiss had written a book called Panderings.  It was actually more of a scrapbook, really.  I pee'ed away an hour or so at a local Border's bookstore flipping through it.

One kernel of wisdom that I had to laugh at was this quote:

The biggest thing in a man's pants should be his wallet.

[Tyler Durden]

I hate to bring up a competitor's name, but I really like the format of the PowerFactorShow on YouTube, but then again, I compete.

And it's subsequent target audience is probably like 0.001% of all the gunowners in the whole United States.

I am too cheap to get cable or to pay for cable, and YouTube is...well...free!

I have never downloaded one single solitary podcast from anybody, wouldn't even know how.

A friend a few years back looked into starting his own show.  He said it would cost $35,000 to buy a half hour block of time on such and such channel.  So he went on to tell me that you have to get advertisers or line up advertisers who pay you enough to run their commercials during that half hour block, plus money to pay your salary, the producer's salary, camerman's salary, etc....etc....

So if Michael Bane is able to talk these marketing guys at this various companies (Husqvarna?) out of $70,000 for an hour of TV time, LOOK OUT!  Michael can probably sell ice to an eskimo!   

I'd be curious, Michael, just exactly how do you get feedback from the Outdoor Channel has far as ratings go, or viewership numbers???

[tombogan03884]

Nielson ?

[Michael Bane]

Nielsen and Rentrack...Nielsen is the "traditional" ratings' service, using a sampling of families across the country equipped with Nielsen Set Meters. Rentrack draws their data from people's cable/sat boxes and provides an in-depth look at viewing habits.

I am also sensitive to "non-traditional" audience feedback mechanisms, including the various firearms forums — especially DRTV, because we have a years-long direct dialogue on programming — post-episode Internet traffic (a measure of "buzz," more or less), email volume and tone, industry sales data and trending lines (for example,the 9mm single stack line is sharply upward), national trending lines on issues like RKBA, gun control legislation, etc., what my competition — print and electronic — is doing, and any other piece of data I can lay my hands on.

There's a phrase I remember from the early days of personal computers...data is data; information is power. After you assemble all this data, the most important thing is to figure out what it all means. It's not enough to know, as I do for Season 12 of SG, that competition episodes are trending upward...I need to have some idea of why competition shows are suddenly more popular. Is it our treatment of those shows within the longer format? A new audience coming into competition? Cooler people in the shooting sports (hey, gotta ask!)? To help me analyze data I reach out to my producing partners — Marshal, John Carter, Mike Long, Tim Cremin — and people who have historically been excellent at analyzing trends (Paul Erhardt and Jim Shepherd come to mind) and people within the firearms industry whose job it is to figure trends on firearms sales.

The reason I need to know all this stuff is to make my best guess of what the first six months of 2013 will look like as the environment for SHOOTING GALLERY and THE BEST DEFENSE. Is the rise in interest in competitions solid, for example, or just a temporary burp?

I'm already all-in for GUN STORIES (Q3 2012), where we're already rolling the cameras, and RAPID FIRE (Q4 2012), which will film next month...and I'm working with the producers of OC's newest, ELITE TACTICAL UNIT, which I can't talk to you about just yet.

So far, I have had major planning session on SG and TBD lining up changes for 2013. I can tell you that TBD will move closer to concealed carry, and I'm tentatively planning on expanding Marty Hayes' legal segment. For SG, expect a much more sophisticated studio set-up (more like the final wrap-up show of this last season) and a different way of working with the audience; more specific segments (part of the long-term plan on "building out" the TOP GEAR format, and a new co-host. On the new segments, for example, I moved all the training segments off the broadcast product to DRTV for Season 12; next season we plan to tweak that and bring back a short training segment each week to broadcast, and you can see the complete segment on DRTV.

And BTW, I believe I am the only producer I know of who'd tell this much about what he or she does! This is the Land of Paranoia, after all...

Michael B

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

Gun ownership among the general public seems to have exploded in the past few years.
the increase in "why competition shows are suddenly more popular" could be related to new shooters looking for a recreational purpose other than hunting and plinking.
Just a thought.

[Michael Bane]

I agree with you, Tom...after massive discussions, we tend to think of the new interest in competition as a reflection of the growth of Gun Culture Ver. 2.0...


mb

[kmitch200]

So far, I have had major planning session on SG and TBD lining up changes for 2013. I can tell you that TBD will move closer to concealed carry, and I'm tentatively planning on expanding Marty Hayes' legal segment. For SG, expect a much more sophisticated studio set-up (more like the final wrap-up show of this last season) and a different way of working with the audience; more specific segments (part of the long-term plan on "building out" the TOP GEAR format, and a new co-host. On the new segments, for example, I moved all the training segments off the broadcast product to DRTV for Season 12; next season we plan to tweak that and bring back a short training segment each week to broadcast, and you can see the complete segment on DRTV.

And BTW, I believe I am the only producer I know of who'd tell this much about what he or she does! This is the Land of Paranoia, after all...
Michael B

Thank you for the insight Michael. IMHO, the highlighted parts are going to be a big improvement. 
I was always wishing the legal section was a bit longer but I understand that different states are so varied that Marty is walking on eggshells. Maybe a walk through for Class 3 stuff - I really would like to know more on the Trust aspect of ownership.
The audience could go away completely and wouldn't be missed. You could get as much emotion from emails. 
 
Personally, not being a competitive handgun shooter, I think match coverage is boring....and I watch PGA golf!
I shoot competitive Trap but would hate to watch it on TV. I can barely stand to watch it in person if I'm not pulling the trigger. For me, I think it has to do with the lack of depth perception on TV and not being able to really appreciate the true nature/difficulty of the COF.
No biggie, I have a FF button on the remote. 

Keep up the good work! 

[tombogan03884]

One thing you could do that would stun every one in the industry.
Evaluate a firearm and conclude that it is a ho hum, just another, or that it is a POS with poor workmanship, instead of everything being the latest and greatest must have.
I realize that last part is really difficult for a true gun person since even that stupid double 1911 has an oddness appeal to the people who just love anything that goes bang 

[Pathfinder]

One thing you could do that would stun every one in the industry.
Evaluate a firearm and conclude that it is a ho hum, just another, or that it is a POS with poor workmanship, instead of everything being the latest and greatest must have.
I realize that last part is really difficult for a true gun person since even that stupid double 1911 has an oddness appeal to the people who just love anything that goes bang-bang 

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