I know.. gimme a second…
This morning I was at TV Limburg in Roermond, Holland.
Yeah, I know. Where?
Roermond, Holland.
You probably have never heard of it, but you should. Because in Roermond a fascinating exercise in the new television is taking place.
Newspapers, we know, are in decline largely because they were unable to get out of their old ways of working fast enough. The New York Times built is $650 million new building on 40th Street as a kind of monument to old media business. A tombstone some might say.
What is happening to newspapers today is going to happen to TV networks tomorrow, if not sooner. Looking out of my apartment in Manhattan I see 30 Rockefeller Center. Buried somewhere deep in that $120 a square foot building, are the studios for NBC. Like all studios built in the 1950s, (even though this is 2009), the studio is buried deep in the building, filled with racks of lights, massive cameras on pedistals, enormous control rooms and so on.
In Roermond, the TV station is in a shopping center. It is, in fact, part of the shopping center. Ernest Bujok, who runs the company cut a deal with the shopping center for a 10-year lease that is for all practical purposes free. The shopping center gets the considerable promotional value of the broadcast, the studio gets to offset the cost of rent and build-out with advertising income from the shopping center.
Its not just a studio, but also a working cafe and local entertainment center. Studio audiences are daily, and so are local entertainers. It’s a regular community center.
We are all familiar with product placement. Bujok calls this ‘station placement’. Take the TV studio to the products.  Now he is talking about cutting a deal with Ikea to put a local tv studio in Ikea stores. No problem with the sets…. Great entertainment for the shoppers.. (better than Swedish meatballs)…
And local TV networks are a valuable resource. Valuable for advertisers who want more than just a commercial. There is a real value to going live from a major commercial player. Value to the commercial entity and value to the network.
Bujok, I should add, now runs 5 local TV stations, all extremely profitable, and all 100% VJ-driven.
Other local stations in Europe are on life support. Bujok has managed to re-invent the business and make it extremely profitable, even in todays highly depressed economy.
There is a lot to be learned… even in Roermond.
