Comment HOW TO GET AHEAD IN TV LESSON EIGHT


Warning: don’t overdo the hype O


ne of the first things an ambitious, thrust- ing telly type learns is


that no matter how modern and cool the world of TV, sooner or later, a successful producer must master the art


of old-fashioned print journalism, because no show can really make it big without getting press attention. And I’m not talking about a prosaic announcement in Broadcast detailing the name of the GFX geek doing your opening titles sequence, but about generating front- page headlines in the red-tops. We all saw this recently with all that tabloid


hysteria about a grown man choosing to die as we all watch. For weeks now, every hack in Fleet Street has been outraged about TV cameras recording the grisly sight of a man slowly losing the will to live. But I’m not talking about a serious documen-


tary on Terry Pratchett catching the Dignitas bus on BBC2; no, this concerns a Mr Simon Cowell, who has been publicly killing his career, his reputation and his friendship with Cheryl Cole, courtesy of the press. How shocking. For months now, there has been at least one


tiresome story every day concerning Cowell and his stable of formulaic talent shows. But in a


22 | Broadcast | 1 July 2011


valuable lesson for the rest of us, this overkill of press publicity is not helping ‘Brand Cowell’. It’s creating a backlash so strong that Simon now looks like some sort of shambolic, ama- teurish operator rather than the most success- ful TV producer in the world. Even worse, I am starting to feel sorry for


Cheryl – even though, like most of the hard- faced trolls behind the camera, I openly


‘Cowell seems to have forgotten the first rule of TV: never make a drama out of a crisis’


despise most presenters for being better looking, better paid and for grabbing all the glory, without doing any of the hard work. How could she (and the rest of the highly paid suits) have been so stupid? You see, one of the first aspects of dealing


with fame is encountering hype – and knowing when to believe it. As the naïve young starlets of say, a constructed (i.e. ‘completely made up’) reality show like TOWIE, Made In Chelsea or Geordie Shore must learn ASAP, press stories are bullshit but a necessary evil when it comes to generating heat about a new show. And


As Simon Cowell has discovered, not all publicity is good publicity, says Steven D Wright


however intoxicating it can be at first to be ‘papped’ flashing your knickers in the tabloids, as one becomes more famous, one soon learns that press stories are daft, disposable and downright dangerous. Even more pernicious is when producers


forget what actually makes a good show (appar- ently Simon, it’s something called ‘content’) and start believing their own hype. This, as The X Factor debacle shows, is fatal – and despite being TV gold and a ‘National Treasure’, the drip-feed effect of having nonsensical stories every day for the past nine months has pissed the viewers off, cheapened the show and risked damaging Cheryl’s credibility (and, more importantly, Simon’s career). For all the press claims that Cowell is a


brilliant producer who so understands the game, he seems to have forgotten the first rule of TV: never make a drama out of a crisis. BTW, I should point out that, ironically,


drama on British TV is currently in full-on crisis mode with mass unemployment, out-of- control budgets and stalled commissions. But you’ll have to read about it in another column. Now, is that a juicy PR tease or – as the journal- ists say – have I accidentally buried the lead? ➤ Until recently, Steven D Wright was creative director at Carbon. This column appears monthly


www.broadcastnow.co.uk


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