Hi there,
A few weeks ago, I answered a few of the questions that were put to me on here about my time working on Ideal World.
I was wondering, if some of you wouldn't mind if I could ask a couple of my own?
I know that there has always been a lot of criticism levelled against shopping channels, their presenters, their products, heck even their studios. So, in an ideal world (pun very much intended) what would you want to see on a shopping channel?
I assume honesty and integrity to be the simplest and most concise answer to that question, but beyond that, what kind of presenting style would you want? Straight to the point when it comes to the sale or a more relaxed style - somewhere between entertainment and selling?
Would you want to be able to interact with the presenters? Or to see some elements of channels that are gone; like live price changes ala Bid and Price Drop?
Would you want to see brands you've heard of and products you're familiar with? Innovative new items that are a little bit odd? A mixture of the two?
From a personal perspective, I always did technology shows - so a lot of the gadgets and gizmos from the past (camcorders, cd players, sat navs) have kind of been replaced by smartphones.
Believe me, I'm not on the cusp of setting up GrantTV, but I'm just curious to see what the consensus would be on a channel that would work.
A couple of other points: the falling auction element of the jewellery channels is well past its sell by date. It might have been entertaining 20 years ago, but these days seeing a plated jewellery piece studded with filled and irradiated stones start off with an estimated RRP in the high hundreds is laughable. And the interminable number of price drops and clocks the channels insist on is extremely off-putting. People would rather switch off and look online at their leisure than go through that rigmarole.
And back to presenters being honest and transparent IW's sister channel is a curious mixture of presenters alternately oversharing and lying to ramp up sales. Often the same presenters (*cough* Chloe and Mark *cough*). Presenters are paid to present: Lindsey Gunderson once stated very clearly that prices were determined behind the scenes, and that this was way above her pay grade: her only role is to sell whatever she had on air. Yet to listen to the other two presenters mentioned above, management won't even bring an item to air without their input. Chloe even got caught out once after declaring that an item she was flogging was specially priced for her show thanks to her intervention, and would be sold at a much higher price afterwards. Then four hours later Andy Hodgson has the same item on air at the exact same price, but this time that's due to the day being very, very slow. And is now at a lower price for his show only.
Then there's Mark, who along with the now departed Rachel Hatton, will explode into faux exaggerated outrage at the low, low prices of the products he's flogging. As if all this is an insult to his honour, his family's honour, and quite possibly the late Dolly the sheep's (may she rest in peace) honour too.
Viewers see all of this, and will keep all of it in mind when deciding whether they're going to spend money on a £10.00 "woolly" (100% luxury acrylic) hat, or possibly hundreds on a piece of jewellery. And while watching selly telly presenters act like bad daytime soap opera actors to get sales is entertaining, it doesn't instil confidence in trusting them enough to give them any amount of cash.
There's always going to be vulnerable people who can be taken advantage of. And I suspect that some shopping telly channels have been trying to aim their sales pitches towards them. You only have to see some of the texts presenters read out from viewers to see that.
But even these people are becoming increasingly tech savvy: otherwise how would they text in? And with that knowledge will come an increased confidence in using the internet. And if UK shopping telly channels can't adjust their selling techniques now, then it won't be long before it's just craft telly and QVC on air. And I am not sure how long they're going to remain afloat
(you need to click on it to see it)
