Broadcasting and Advertising - CoreTalk, MRSL and Jus Bet to the Rescue

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? Is it because we are not the person concerned?

Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar

This odd question rings a chord today as I watch while eating my bourbon (people, people. the biscuit, not the drink, I don’t drink!!), which for the uninitiated, is for me the equivalent of Prozac, as being rather heavily addicted to chocolate, I cannot start the day without eating or drinking it. So obsessed am I that I do not even like eating porridge without having chocolate mixed into it!

Christmas is a delight for me, as all of our cakes are made with chocolate. I love braised chicken with a chocolate glaze or poulle a la chocolat, my favourite food that I taught Audia Granston, my deceased girlfriend who died of cervical cancer, to cook for me and used to make just right, with the chocolate saturating every tendon down to the bone. It is amazing all the things you can put chocolate.

I love chocolate so much that I have decided to add it to my growing list of topic to write about, as I realize while watching and sipping my chocolate and eating my bourbon that although on Smile Jamaica , aired Tuesday July 20 2010 on Television Jamaica Simone Clarke –Cooper, now in her late forties (40’s) is getting fatter, it was not from eating too much chocolate. 

In fact, her sudden explosion in size, much as was the case with Natalie Del Conte, a Senior Editor on CNET News, is from being pregnant, thought empirical proof in the absolute would have to be provided to verify the veracity of John Public’s observation and the utterances of Simon Crosskill, her co-host, who constantly robs her in the segment “Something to Smile About”.

Thus it is new life is being produced live on television, folks, making me wonder, as I have been told so often by Audia, that it is just a show of camera light and magic, possibly to boost ratings for Smile Jamaica , much as in Hollywood in California, actors pretend to have babies, even soliciting people to have their young bundles of joy on television in shows.

Who knows, maybe part of the plot is to have the Pet Tales Chick, aka Carlette DeLeon show the miracle childbirth of animals on live television by having some animals have sex on television, which by the way is allowed by the Broadcasting Commission, as their restrictions of inappropriate programming does not extend to animals, technically speaking.

Maybe even Carlette DeLeon, host of the Pet Tales will be getting pregnant next. Whatever the case may be, John Public is not buying the idea that Simone Clarke –Cooper just accidentally got pregnant, especially on the heels of one of the hosts on the lesser viewed shows on television in the morning time slot on the competing television station, CVM TV, aptly called CVM at Sunrise, also coincidentally having a baby as well and sharing maternity related tips with the audience.

John Public surmises that females on both Smile Jamaica  and CVM at Sunrise deliberately impregnated themselves to boost ratings for their show, as bereft of solid evidence, Television Jamaica may have noticed that, since Simon Crosskill’s impromptu announcement to “the whole world” as Simone Clarke –Cooper has put it with much chagrin, weeks before the World Cup that she was pregnant, advertising spots on Smile Jamaica  overall has been on the rise, a fact the eagle-eyed John Public has noticed for several weeks by counting the number of advertisers and postings on the calendar on their show.

Granted it may be a holdover from World Cup, but I had also noticed the same thing on CVM at Sunrise when one of the hosts was visibly in a late stage of pregnancy, a good three (3) months before the World Cup. 

Not conclusive, but can I now hypothesize that controversy for dancehall artiste, the death of a loved one in the case of SDA Audia Granston or the VoiceMail Artiste, or pregnancy on live television can boost television ratings?

Is this the Broadcasters RJR Communication Group and CVM Communication Group plan to boost viewership on their television shows and thus attract more advertisers, akin to the spectacle of, All Together Sing, Dancin’ Dynamites and now Digicel Rising Stars?

It may very well just be the case, as John Public explores this topic in depth, that as a people we love a spectacle and that spells news and increased viewership on television in keeping with the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity and it may be in keeping with my girlfriend’s view as it relates to “talk up de ting dem”.

Granted, there are more scientific ways of gauging the viewership of television programs, such as both the Broadcasters having an independent analyst, such as MRSL: register users phone numbers, mobile phones IMEI and SIM card IMSI using Government of Jamaica identification i.e. TRN, NIS, Passport, Birth Certificate and Voter’s ID and then using CoreTalk Caribbean Limited SMS services to have the registered participants vote on a scale of one (1)  to ten (10) in response to an SMS sent out at the end of a show to rate how much they love or hate a show.

Based on the feedback, Broadcasters then can use this information to sell time slots more precisely to advertisers, instead of having to resort to controversy, death or birth as Mark Twain asserts to hold the interests of the unconcerned. 

Then again, doing it this way is possibly cheaper, as the local Radio Stations in Jamaica for some time begun to incorporate banter into their programming so as to allow listeners to hear what is going on in the studio. It would not therefore be surprising in the future that they incorporate video steaming to add a video element. Oh well……

As for me, I am off to Jus Bet! I have a proposal for them which may garner increased revenue. Jus Bet could introduce, aside from Sports Betting, going Online or on mobile phone apps downloads, seeing as how smart phone adoption is exploding in the USA as stated in the article “The summer of the smart phone shortage”, published July 13, 2010 4:00 AM PDT by Marguerite Reardon, CNET News - Signal Strength.

All indications suggest the same is soon to happen in Jamaica,  placing wagers on Events, effectively Events Betting e.g. Grammy Awards, Oscars, Tony Awards, etc. The first Event bet?

The sex of the mysterious Simone Clarke –Cooper baby, who I shall wager is a girl. And I would also wager on her name, that being Avaya, as since the end of the World Cup, I have won lots of money thanks to Paul the Octopus and only have the Barclays Premier League,  upon which to place wager on. Digicel Rising Stars for Jus Bet, anyone?