The Business of It All

Objective:

To develop a wide range of multimedia content and merchandising geared toward the collecting community.  The long-term goal is to build a highly profitable enterprise and to reach a point where philanthropy is built right into the business model, both in terms of monetary gifts and more importantly building programs to develop skills and creative thinking.  

Logistics:

Whether visiting local events or traveling coast to coast, shows and conventions allow for the creation of an endless amount of excellent content on a shoestring budget.  And, these events bring together more potential viewers / followers in one day than might be reached via online marketing strategies in a weeks time.  These collectors and enthusiasts crave connectivity, interactivity and new forms of content.  Give them something that facebook, instagram and twitter cannot or has not, notably original video content, and users will follow. 

Eye toward TV: 

Longterm, I'd like to see this umbrella of brands as the go to source for all antique / collectible content, both web based and developed / produced for television.  Where I think the biggest opportunity in television lies is in the live auction format.  In the last 2-3 years, the number of hours of live collector car auctions has jumped from a handful each year to 10s of hours each week on at least two specialty networks.  I can’t help but think that the next wave will include live art, antiques and collectibles for the likes of PBS, the History Channel and Ovation.  If we could corner that market by signing on the top auction houses and prove the concept online, this could be our ticket into the lucrative world of television, and more importantly bring millions of new users back to the website.

Other TV Projects:
'Valuation' - Antique / Collecting game show; details at valuationtv.blogspot.com , as well as a complete episode synopsis, a full episode sampler, with lots and lots of wonderful visuals.

‘Dealer vs Dealer’ - the ultimate 'man's man' competition series.   Each episode features two professional dealers (or teams) that go head to head to see who can take $10,000 and buy and sell the most items to turn the biggest profit in a week's time.  Each episode would feature new teams as well as recurring dealers/teams (winners stay, losers walk).  The dealers featured would be from all walks of life - antique dealers, car dealers, storage locker buyers, artists, pickers and so on; real, tough, veterans of the business, with each episode not only showing how and where these dealers find and buy items, but also the intense race to turn them for a profit in a short week's time - not an easy task.

User submitted content:
Down the road, viewer created content will be key.  By incentivizing the creation of quality docu-style content, as Current TV did in the mid 2000s, we could amass an impressive catalog of content that would have cost immeasurable time and money if self-produced.  In a similar model to Current and ‘Funny or Die’, we must first produce our own content (from above) to show potential filmmakers what is expected of them in the creation of their own original content.  If successful, this is how you jump from a few hours of self-produced content each week and turn it into hundreds of hours of quality viewer created pieces which would then be curated for Gemr users.  This model would also lend well to a series for television.

Necessary Resources:

There's a great misconception that original video content, whether it be for television or online, is cost prohibitive.  The reality is that it's talent prohibitive.  With the right team, high quality HD video content can be produced remarkably fast at a price point where the benefits exponentially outweigh the costs.  All that's needed to get the ball rolling is an idea, the right talent and a very limited budget.  I have confidence in all three.