You ever wonder why talk shows are so confrontational? It’s probably because no one wants to watch a show where everyone agrees with each other. In marketing you very quickly learn that people say one thing, but DO another.
People say they don’t like controversy but shows like: Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, The Hills and even the lame Brett Michaels career revival tour ‘Rock of Love’ are wildly popular.
Here’s a real world example for you on how much controversy sells.
Last week on ESPN’s Sports Center, Mel Kiper (ESPN’s veteran draft guru) and Todd McShay (new draft guru guy) were arguing about who the Detroit Lions should take with the number 1 pick in the NFL draft. McShay’s point was that the Lions should not take Matt Stafford as the number 1 pick because he doesn’t have the talent of a number 1 pick. Kiper’s point was that Detroit needs a quarterback and they should take Stafford.
The conversation deteriorated to the point where McShay told Kiper that his point was asinine (which it was, you take the most talented player on the board) and from there the whole show melted down.
The next time that Sports Center ran through they had edited out all of the controversy which was a big, BIG mistake. The argument was almost reaching critical mass on the local Sports Radio network. It got to the point that the local guys were polling listeners whether or not they agreed with McShay or Kiper. Everyone was waiting to see the argument when they reran Sports Center but they didn’t repeat it. However, by the end of the day the shirts at ESPN figured out that they were getting some buzz, so they reran the clip but by then it was too late. People are engaged in Sports Radio while they are at work, by the time ESPN decided to play the tape again it was too late.
Gene Simmons, the bassist for the rock band KISS famously observed that ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’. It would serve ESPN well to learn the meaning of this phrase. They could have used these clips to drive traffic to their website and give their sponsors some exposure, but they blew it.
