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Friday, August 8, 2003

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Hugh Hewitt's intriguing idea

I've taken Hugh Hewitt to task when he was wrong, so it's only fair to link to this brilliant suggestion:

When do you suppose it will strike some producer at Fox or MSNBC that they ought to launch "Blogweek," hosted by James, Glenn, and Virginia and featuring three minute segments with 10 different bloggers talking about their blogs? Instantly a cable show would have an audience with the complete attention of the web and the opinion class.

Try watching weekend cable. This show would dominate the weekend ratings as surely as Arnold did the news cycle this week.

Would it actually work? Maybe, maybe not. The largest blogs currently average less than 100,000 hits a day, so I'm not sure how large a built-in audience exists for this sort of thing. Still, by news channel standards, it's a decent starting point.

Plus, I wholeheartedly support any opportunity to see blue nail polish.

And if it didn't work out? There would be waves of media coverage about how the Blogosphere has jumped the shark, which would be followed by snarky blog posts mocking the media meme.

C'mon, MSNBC -- how could it be worse than Michael Savage?

If the news channels don't work out, the backup plan should be to encourage VH1 to start a monthly Behind the Blog feature.

posted by Dan on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM

Comments:

Sounds like a plan to me. I'm in favor of any excuse to have Virginia on TV.

(Yes, the blog is down; no, I haven't figured out a way to do anything about it from 750 miles away...)

posted by: Chris Lawrence on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM [permalink]

What do you mean "jump the shark"? I represent that remark.

posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM [permalink]

"And on today's Blog Week, Rachel Lucas, Kim du Toit, and the bloghost of The Spoons Experience will discuss the Second Amendment."

posted by: Alan K. Henderson on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM [permalink]

Getting big media to host blogs with or without that media's spin?

posted by: Barry on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM [permalink]

Sign me up!

posted by: Spoons on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM [permalink]

I think what Chris Lydon has been doing lately, audio interview of webloggers in a radio-style format, is a step in this direction.

posted by: xian on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM [permalink]

Well, what could a 'Behind the Bloggers' special unearth that could possibly be more damning than Reynolds' puppy-blending, or Lileks' crystal-meth habit? Cable's got nothing on the net when it comes to salacious rumours.

posted by: George on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM [permalink]

What would the show be about?

posted by: GT on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM [permalink]

http://www.emocrap.com/ has an interesting comment from a blog girl who went on TechTV.

She got teased pretty badly for some of the personal information she wrote about in her blog --- she is depressed about being unemployed for example.

She isn't crazy about going on TV again, and it's understandable why. It may be that the internet and TV aren't all that compatible. The personal details and quirks make blogs compelling, but these quirks expose a person to direct ridicule on TV.

posted by: snore on 08.08.03 at 06:19 PM [permalink]