Blogging the Dragon
Today I had the opportunity to preview the first episode of Dragon’s Den, a new CBC reality show that premieres on Wed., Oct 4 at 8:00 p.m. EST/PST.
The show is pretty interesting, but more on that in a minute. What struck me was the very notion of letting bloggers in on the preview process. And not just Inside The CBC – invitations were also sent to business blogger Rick Spence at Canadian Entrepreneur, Kempton’s Blog and even The Teamakers.
Which is certainly more interesting than just mailing a few screeners to newspaper reviewers. And more likely to net some positive buzz (whereas Globe & Mail columnist John Doyle’s review amounts to “confusing”, Spence says “I think this can really help raise the sophistication level of Canadian entrepreneurs” and Kempton gushes, “Do we have a great show on hand? Absolutely!”) Non-traditional publicity isn’t something CBC comes by naturally.
And the show? You’ll have to make up you own mind on Wednesday, but I enjoyed it. It’s a mix of familiar reality TV devices: take The Apprentice, add a slick opening (with Cadillac product placement), tension music and camera movements from Who Wants to be a Millionaire, an Idol-esque crabby judge, and you’ve got the idea.
But it works. It’s very glossy, although the dungeon-like setting gets claustrophobic after a while (I would have liked to see these people outside, doing their thing.) The judges have chemistry, host Dianne Buckner is a nice fit, and the pitches are certainly… varied. Their products range from about $5 to $30 million, and you’ll enjoy the “body care product for women” bit.
The Dragon’s Den site is decent too – check out the Pitchers Bible section on how to pitch your own idea to investors.
I think a lot of people will be watching this show – and watching its ratings. Reality television at CBC has a very bad name of late… can Dragon’s Den turn things around?
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not a chance.
Stuart – have you checked the ratings of similar shows in the US ? They’re going down like the Titanic.
If the CBC really DOES want to get into the reality show game..they should get ahead of the curve not limp along years behind it.
sorry pal. The dragon’s out of steam, already.
dy
…one more thought on why this show will tank in the ratings – especially on night #1
Look at the launch date. And then look at what the other nets have scheduled that night.
The Leafs v the Sens. 7.pm eastern Wed Oct 4. How did the programming people miss this ?? It’s only been public knowledge for about 6 months now.
The art of programming is not simply to find a spot that works on your sched…but also to find a spot that works for your audience too. Despite Diane this show will skew male…Leafs v Sens or “the Dragons Den”. ???
Hi Tod,
Thanks for linking to my posting and quoting me. I will respond more on in my next comment.
First off, I would like to respond to Don’s comments.
Hi Don,
The Leafs v the Sens. 7.pm eastern Wed Oct 4 is rather unfortunate timing for the show season’s opener but I don’t know how much time slot choice was given to the Dragons’ Den (in short, DD) team to pick from. Put it this way, if DD was Rupert Murdoch’s favourite new show, I am sure DD will have a better time slot in the “fair and balanced” Fox. (by the way, that Clinton interview is a must see on YouTube).
Now, the reality game show thing in US may not be doing well. But the problem (may be a self-created one at that) is the fact that I don’t agree with the CBC in calling DD a “reality series”. For this, I am going to go lazy and repost a comment I wrote for the DD web site and it applies perfectly here.
I will write some more on the main post later.
Kempton
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The following comment was originally posted on DD’s website.
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I will add another “misconception” that I think we are still making and sometimes I make this mistake too. And I ask for yours and other CBC execs’ forgiveness in advance before I type on and you read on.
To me, calling Dragons’ Den “CBC business reality series” is highly misleading and problematic. True, “reality series” is being hyped and done to death these days. And, ah, people are watching these stuff. But is DD really a “reality series”?
Yes, DD has real interesting entrepreneurs pitching their real businesses and ideas.
Yes, the DDs are real rich and have their own real money to invest live while the entrepreneurs were pitching their businesses.
Yes, all the emotions and things said were recorded live at time.
But, very importantly, we don’t have cameras following these entrepreneurs or Dragons for days recording their lives in details and showing the audience some supposed juicy bits. And, at the moment, **ALL** US-created “reality series” has a prize at the end and there is a winner. So I ask, if we keep calling ourselves a “reality series”, should we be surprised that the media and viewers expect a single “winner” and a “prize”?
I don’t have a marketing solution to this naming challenge at the moment. But I personally think that the word “reality” is so loaded and so misleading that using it is like fighting a battle while carrying a 10 ton weight around — not fun.
Just my 2 cents. And half of the time I change my mind two minutes later. (smile)
Cheers,
Kempton
hi kempton. I highly doubt the DD team had ANY choice over their time slot. These are network decisions made towards the top of the food chain.
But I’m confused why the Corp would role out a high profile “franchise” show against the season opener of the Leafs ? And in the golden horse-shoe young male demo (the only one that really counts)….everyone will be watching Tie Domi on TSN.
how could senior managment have missed this ? The NHL sched was released months ago ??
what gives ??
dy
Do you mean their products have prices in the following set: $5; $5.01, $29,999,999; $30,000,000?
No, I don’t. But I’m in no mood for your pedantry, Joe, since I was up until 3:00 this morning trying to switch my own blog from Blogger to WordPress – something you recommended months ago
It keeps cacking out on the final step of importing…
Hi d.j.,
I hate to open my mouth on this, so I am blaming my hands for typing the following. My hands made me do it!!! Not me!!! Could the CBC senior execs have simply mis-calculated and decided to start all shows in the same “opening” week? Would it be better to start one week later? I don’t know.
Another idea may be the show will take sometime to warm up and many audiences may catch the shows during its rerun.
For one thing to DD’s advantage, each show is independent. In fact, each businesses entrepreneur’s pitch is totally independent of each other. So any one of them can get the money they asked for or not.
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Hi Joe Clark (I hope you are not The Right Honourable Joe Clark),
Each entrepreneur come up to Dragons’ Den with their own business ideas, products and sometime projects. The $30 million one is not a product that one expect you or I to buy, it is a “project” idea that one of the entrepreneur bought to the DD.
All these ideas are so different. And this is what makes it fun for me. Ultimately, all entrepreneurship is we create business of distinct advantage that hopefully “sells” or “works” in a market segment or niche.
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dj and Joe,
Hope this clarifies something for you both.
Cheers,
Kempton
P.S. I still haven’t reply to Tod’s original post in full yet, I will do that soooon.
Hi Tod,
Finally finished fighting some fire and now back to replying to your points about Dragons Den. I will make another post on “… letting bloggers in on the preview process.”
I am a big DD fan and you are right that I gushed. But I did gush in a remotely Fox-Fair-And-Balanced kind of way by having a counter-part to my gush. (big smile)
“Do we have a great show on hand? Absolutely!
Can the show be made better? Yes, I think so. After all, this is just the first episode.”
First of all, I think comparing “Dragons’ Den” to “The Apprentice” is like comparing interviews done by Charlie Rose and those done by me. IMHO, Charlie does the best interview on TV. And me, I locked the door first so my interviewees can’t escape. (smile) Anyway, “The Apprentice” is totally contrived and a human-lab-rat show that is silly and degrading at times but lots of people watch and some of my good friends even watched too.
You are right on the Cadillac product placement bit but it pays the bill. The car placement kinda makes it looks stylish. But at the same time, I am not sure if it has good engineering quality remotely close to the likes of a Lexus. (OK, I know I am a marked man now. They are a sponsor. Where is the “Delete” key when I need it !!)
You wrote, “… gets claustrophobic after a while (I would have liked to see these people outside, doing their thing.)”
Here we have a fundamental disagreement. Allow me to use Charlie Rose as an example again. I love Charlie’s interviews with a dark black background. In a dark background, the ideas and the discussions rule supreme, instead of the fancy settings they are in. Now in the case of Dragons’ Den, it is very important that the businesses ideas/products/concepts be communicated and explained well to the Dragons on the spot, right then and there. In some senses, we audiences at home are experiencing the same pitch at the same time as the Dragons. And those audiences that are interested in business or making money will be playing our own “Armchair Dragoning” and try to determine if the business is a diamond in the rough or a dude. Pretending to “invest” or “get out”. All these are valuable business skills to have.
And since you mentioned it (I avoided all references however remote in my blog), I also love the “body care product for women” pitch too. I am staying vague deliberately now (not to spoil the fun). I understand why “what happened” happened but I can see myself think differently and act differently than the Dragons.
I too will watch out closely for the Nielsen ratings. As I said, one can make the best product but the consumers/viewers will still have to want to buy it or watch it. I hope it will be love at first sight but I am willing to settle for the viewers growing to love the show as much as I do.
Remember, I love the show but I don’t think it is perfect either. Will watch the show on Wednesday night and sleeplessly wait for the Thursday or Friday newspaper to read the reviews and feedbacks.
Cheers,
Kempton
Hi Tod,
To me, the most important point for CBC to get in this post has nothing to do with DD. It is this part,
“What struck me was the very notion of letting bloggers in on the preview process. And not just Inside The CBC – invitations were also sent to business blogger Rick Spence at Canadian Entrepreneur, Kempton’s Blog and even The Teamakers.”
The long term strategic implication may be a bit obscure for the really senior CBC executives to grasp but none the less very important. Letting the bloggers in on the preview process is like openly testing the product in a trusted environment and getting valuable support or feedback to improve the product.
I am dreaming for the day where a few really senior CBC executives start to have their own personal blogs and allow regular people to post their comments. For this, we can simply copy BBC’s example and policies. It is interesting to see Richard Sambrook’s, Director of BBC Global News, blog experiment unfolding. So far I think it is going great and keeping him sharp. And hopefully benefiting BBC’s strategic direction and thinking at the same time. And I love his insight to.
http://sambrook.typepad.com/sacredfacts/
To me, this is one example of how BBC stay sharp.
Enough bull shiitake from me for one day. I hope your readers have not been bored to death by my comments.
Cheers,
Kempton
Wow, thanks for all the thoughtful input, Kempton. But I should mention that it’s me, Paul, doing the posting now – Tod’s away for a while. (I see that the RSS feeds still think he’s posting, even though they are entered with my account. Odd.)
I do take your point about the differences between this and The Apprentice, and I was happy enough not to see the entrepreneurs running through mazes or fighting over the shower. But I did find the one-room presentation tiring after a while. I certainly does emphasize the product, and each bit is nicely self-contained. I’m just not sure how long it can sustain my interest.
And I agree about the importance of letting bloggers in on the process – it’s a big step.
[...] By chance, I read Tod’s Inside the CBC blog entry “Blogging the Dragon” this morning and I have been fighting fires and trying to set a few things right since. I have written extensive comments in Tod’s blog which you can read here after Tod’s posting. [...]
Hi Paul,
So sorry to get your name mixed up. By the way, I didn’t see your or Tod’s name in the post, I was basing on the “About This Blog” info alone.
As I was more focus on the business viability, the pitches and the questions and answers, I didn’t feel the one-room presentation tiring. On top of the CBC new DD, I have now seen 8 BBC DD shows from the latest season and also one from the last season, so far the one-room thing hasn’t bug me. Mind you, I think I am the wrong guy to give an opinion on this, as I love Charlie Rose’s dark background interview. And when Charlie was sick and away, some tried with a simple background but even those bugged me.
Sorry for the name mixedup. Any way to automatically add your name in the original post?
When I first heard the name The Dragons Den, I expected a show with puppets.
I’m slow to catch on sometimes and if I saw the name in a headline I thought oh another childrens show and I would skip reading the post about it. This time I stopped and read it. So it’s like ‘Venture’, but with a prize of capital? Sounds very… adult. *yawn*
So you literally mean that one of the contestants was pushing a “product” that, upon completion, would have a pricetag of $30 million?
That isn’t “pedantry” (such harsh words from the CBC!), it’s accuracy.
WordPress is known to collapse into a pile of glass shards when importing from another blogging system, despite all blandishments to the contrary.
Hi Barbara,
The Dragons Den = a show with puppets ? I never thought of that but I can see your point. Hopefully with the ads on TV and other media (instead of just the words), you won’t think it is a puppets show.
Dragons’ Den is acutally NOT like “Venture” with a prize of capital. Lotto 649 doesn’t expect you work work your ass off for them when they give you your prize. Prize is yours to keep wiith no expectation.
Whereas the money is the Draongs’ own hard-earned cash and they expect a very high return from it. It is an investment not prize.
In a sense, it is about people with great ideas and products trying to get investors (people with money) to invest in exchange of part of their company. You see, the entrepreneurs have to give up part of their baby (that is their company) in order to get those investment dollars.
In a sense, this show is …. *adult* or business like. May be you are content, like many other people, to work for someone for life. But some others are more willing to take risk and start their own businesses (good or bad).
Imagine a young mother with no business experience selling her cookie in her cookie store and I, as an investor, come in to invest in her business, should she take my money? Well, I wish I knew Debbie Fields then and could invest. Because I would be sitting on a few hundred million dollars right about now. (big smile)
For more info about Ms. Debbi Fields’ story, check here
http://www.mrsfields.com/about/
Cheers,
Kempton
Oh no. Another one of those shows with judging types sitting behind a table critiquing the performing monkey. Double *yawn*
Yes, one of the products would cost $30 million per unit. If you want the details, tonight’s your night. And I finally solved the Blogger import – now to fix all the other problems (permalinks, images, redirects, RSS, etc.)
For redirects, you need a plug-in. Note that you can and urgently should take greater control over posting slugs (one or two words at most, not a whole litany of headline text separated by dashes). Feeds happen automatically in RSS and Atom formats. Images… those are just in whatever folder you specify, nu?
If, in the worst-case scenario, every URL has to change, do update them via Redirect 301 in your htaccess file.
And $30 million? As if.
Hi M. Hughes,
Although I have called contestants in shows like The Apprentice human lab-rats, I think I will have to respectively disagree with your accessment of Dragons’ Den entrepreneurs as “performing monkey”. For one thing, these entrepreneurs are pitching their own products in their own ways, no one is asking them to do contrived tasks or things that has nothing to do with their product.
And the “judge”, well, they are investors investing their own money, so they are in the most general senses, “judges”. But if you were investing you own $100,000, I suspect you will be doing a bit of “judging” too. It is only expected.
Of course, if you missed this week’s show, check it out next week and come to prove me wrong please.
Cheers,
Kempton
Hi Joe,
Well now the show has been aired, I hope you had a chance to watch with your own eyes and comment accordingly. Well, the $30 million project (it is a project more than a product) is a bit out there but the entrepreneur did believe in the “business potential” in his power generator concept. It is just that projects like this and the complexity is not even for investors with very high-risk tolerance. These are government projects and should be funded by governement if the project is indeed any good.
Just my 2 cents.
Kempton