HSN looks to mix reality, retail TV
By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published January 5, 2005
HSN is jumping on the reality show bandwagon.
The TV shopping network and its St. Petersburg headquarters campus will be stars in Made in the U.S.A, a new reality show slated to debut in late spring or summer on the USA Network.
The show, which is in the early stages of production in Los Angeles, will feature inventor contestants tackling the challenges of developing, testing and marketing their brainstorms. Then the show will offer the ultimate test: getting consumers to buy them on live TV.
USA Networks, an NBC-Universal unit, is bankrolling the project. USA Networks leaders hope the series will become its second reality series and the first the network produces on its own. Nashville Star, a competition among country singer wannabes, is produced for USA Networks by an outside company. The cable network recently organized its own alternative show production company and lured Libby Hansen away from ABC-TV to head it.
Made in the U.S.A. was the first idea pitched to network brass by Hansen, who was part of the ABC-TV team that developed such reality shows as Extreme Makeover, Wife Swap and The Bachelor.
The network is looking for a show host and a way to pick contestants for Made in the U.S.A. Producers figured they would get a jump start by tapping into HSN's files, which overflow with pitches volunteered for new products. The show will borrow elements of such other popular reality shows as The Apprentice, in which teams compete for the favor of billionaire Donald Trump by developing business plans for products.
The show "taps into the entrepreneurial side of all of us," said Marty Nealon, president of HSN U.S. "Coming up with a great product is just the beginning. This show will take viewers on a journey with inventor hopefuls as their products are put to the test in the real day-to-day activities at our HSN headquarters."
"It's the perfect show for us," said Jeff Watchtel, USA Networks executive vice president of original programming. "It's fun, aspirational and it speaks to the intelligence and inventiveness of our audience."
For HSN, the joint venture caps a thought process that began about a year ago.
But the pioneer TV shopping network, which has a voracious appetite for new products, for years has marketed itself to would-be entrepreneurs obsessed by a brainstorm they hope to parlay into a fortune. Several years ago the network ran a coast-to-coast bus tour in search of inventive products to air.
Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or 727 893-8252.