Your Own Transmitter

According to his employer’s website, Dan Thorn took the path that many others do who want to be on TV. He earned his degree in Broadcast Journalism from Brooklyn College. He interned at a couple of New York City TV stations before landing a starter job in production in upstate New York.

Eventually he was hired for a weekend news anchor position at WVNS-TV in Ghent, WV. He would quickly move up to anchor the 5, 6, 10, and 11pm newscasts at the station.

In the old media world, it would have taken years before anybody would even know this guy’s name. He would have had to land a job in a bigger market, and then an even bigger market, and if he was lucky, he might make it to a big network one day. But even then it would be doubtful that 10 million people would ever see him, muchless learn his name.

But that was old media.

Today, it just takes an idea to get noticed. So one day, presumably during a commercial break in the newscast at WVNS, Dan decided to crank up “Where They At Doe” by T.I. on his computer and started dancing in his chair, much to the annoyance of his co-anchor. I’m sure you’ve seen the video by now.

And guess what?

10 million views on Facebook, 2 million views on YouTube, and everybody from Time to Us Magazine is writing about him.

All because he decided to do something fun and unusual.

I couldn’t tell you the weekly number of viewers on all of the newscasts combined at WVNS-TV, but I can assure you that way more people have seen Dan dancing in his chair than have ever actually watched him read news.

This is another great example of what I’ve said here before…. you don’t need their transmitter anymore. You have your own. And if your content is good enough, people will share it. And if it’s really good they will come back for more. And if it’s really, really good and consistent, you might be able to make a great living off of it.

Stop playing PPM games, and start making the audience laugh. I promise you’ll have better ratings.

If you are one of the few who haven’t seen the video, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybcNSoh8vI4

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