Mark Blevis

…continued from Hot and Cold Media (part 1): Media in the digital age…

Issue #1: Celebrity and personality are two very different things

Media is about relationships.  Relationships depend on individual personalities.  Just because a celebrity is admired by an audience, doesn’t mean the audience will relate to the celebrity.  The audience needs to feel as though the celebrity understands them, not that the celebrity is simply aware of a common person, place or thing.

More importantly, relationships take time to grow.

Radio stations used to break in talent in the overnight timeslot.  Young newcomers that could prove themselves and win an audience overnight would find themselves getting a daytime or evening slot, eventually working up to the coveted morning show.  With each progression, the host would achieve increased celebrity status until they finally became so good that they left the station.  This was the way the host and the listeners became connected in a way that meant radio went on when the host started their shift.

Such was the case with the CBC.  I spoke about this with former CBCer, Jowi Taylor.  We recounted the days when CBC bred cool in house with people like Peter Gzowski and Stuart McLean.  More recently, in an effort to buy what they thought was cool, they hired established celebrities like Jian Gomeshi and Randy Bachman.  Both have proven themselves over time, but in CBCs claim of the hunt for a younger audience, neither is a draw except on the budget.  Don’t get me wrong, I do listen to both because, over time, they’ve become the radio personalities I can relate to.  Basically, they had to earn their chops like anyone else.

On TV, a lot of what we see that makes a splash is hype.  In a few cases, we can relate to the people — people like Susan Boyle.  Notice, though, that Ms. Boyle is an everyday person, even more so because she was clearly the underdog and appeared to be overcompensating for seeming awkwardly out of place.  We don’t relate to the regular hosts of Britain’s Got Talent or American Idol, we’re entertained by them.

Over the spring and summer of this year, I followed the influence peddling trial of Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien.  The court granted permission for live text updates to be transmitted from the courtroom.  The most prolific out of the gate was the Ottawa Citizen’s Glen McGregor.  Following his Twitter stream was like watching the tape come out of the court stenographer’s machine.  It wasn’t news, it was voyeurism and Glen was the vessel.  Then, Glen started to inflect his updates with fun comments, observations and even a game with his followers.  He began each day wondering what people would wear to court and offered his thoughts on which celebrities would play the real people in the movie version of the trial.  All of this while covering a very real and very important event.  Suddenly, the people that were following the text updates found themselves connecting with and relating to Glen and all of the people in the courtroom.  The stream became as much of the story as the trial was.

Some may argue (and successfully) that this blurring of the line between reporting and interacting was inappropriate or unprofessional.  I suggest that this made the trial and the people in it that much more relevant for the community.

Suggestion: find a way to breed cool in house and establish a relationship between the content producers and content consumers.