'Survivor': The Risks We Take for Promotion

With the new TV season about to begin, dozens of programs, new and old, will be screaming at you from everywhere to get you to watch. There's all the usual stuff: on-air promotion, radio ads, print ads, billboards, bus ads. Then there's the internet, with all its marketing potential. And then there's the creative cross-promotional deals.

CBS announced one of these with Cadillac that includes stuffing what it calls the world's smallest mini flash drive into the Sept. 21 issue of Entertainment Weekly, which only illustrates how far the network has come from the days of giveaway K mart coffee mugs. (Raise your hands if you remember.)

"Survivor" is trying a new promotional tack, as well. It is posting an eight-minute roughly-made video in which host Jeff Probst provides a tour of the base camp to raise awareness for the new season in China. I consider this risky business, and I'm not just referring to any reward challenges that end in fish dinners.

As a reality series, much of the "Survivor" mystique is its ability to create the illusion that the contestants are pretty much alone, out in the middle of nowhere. (Remember all those shots of scary spiders and snakes?) Showing the base camp, which appears to be about the size of a small Army installation, gives the more accurate impression that the show actually takes place on what is essentially a back lot.

There's the transportation office, the production office, the food tent, the challenge office, the medical area, and so on--all of it comfy and air conditioned.

At the end of the video, Probst explains that there are others involved in the production who operate in very close proximity to the players. He would show them, he says, but that might destroy some of the "magic" of the program.

A bit too late for that, isn't it Jeff?

Posted by Barry Garron