TV Archive

Below is a recap of the February 10, 2012 episode of the ABC show Shark Tank (episode 302). If you are unfamiliar with Shark Tank, the concept is simple – entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of investors and the investors have to provide at least the amount the entrepreneur is seeking for a deal to be completed.

Tonight Barbara Corcoran was replaced by QVC product creator Lori Greiner.

Pitch #1 – The Swilt

Ivori Tennelle pitched her product called, “The Swilt” which she describes as a sweater and blanket together. She was seeking $30k for 35% investment and wanted to use the money for SEO and to create inventory. None of the sharks were interested and Lori noted that the Snuggie is dead.

Pitch #2 – Show No

Up next was Shelly Ehler presenting her “Show No” towel. Basically it is a changing towel for kids so they can change into dry clothes at the beach or a water park. So far Shelly has sold $15k in Show No towels to two major amusement parks. Shelly was seeking $50k for 25% investment. This was one of the most heated battles between the investors to-date. Kevin O’Leary referred to the product as a “towel with a hole in it” but the other investors were very interested. Final offers were: Lori at $75k/25%, Damon John at $75k/20% and Mark Cuban at $75k/25%. Shelly selected Lori Grenier’s offer and Lori actually handed a signed check to Shelly – a first for the show (although I would assume it was to make good tv).

Shark Tank Update – Notehall

I am sure you already have heard about Notehall – they signed a deal with Barbara Corcoran for $90k and last year sold to Chegg. Venturebeat noted that Chegg gave Notehall $3.7 million in stock plus an undisclosed amount of cash.

Pitch #3 – Puppy Cake

I am not a dog person so I certainly don’t get this one but Kelly Chaney presented her creation called the, “Puppy Cake“. The Puppy Cake is a cake mix for dogs so you can create a cake for the dog’s special day. She was seeking $50k for 25% and Kelly noted she has $80k in sales over her 4 years in business. Unfortunately none of the investors took the deal. Somehow I think that the idea would work better if Kelly made the cakes and sold them in specialty food stores.

Pitch #4 – Wine Balloon

Last up was Eric Corti with his invention the, “Wine Balloon“. The product is basically a balloon that you insert into a bottle of wine, pump it up and Eric notes that it saves the quality of the wine better than any other device on the market. This was yet another hot battle for the investors. Eric was seeking $40k for 30% and Kevin O’Leary offered exactly what Eric was seeking. Lori Greiner offered $500k for 100% of the company. Mark Cuban joined Lori and offered a combined $600k for 100% of the company. Eric didn’t accept quick enough and Lori and Mark came back with an offer of $400k for 100% and Eric accepted. So in the span of 3 minutes, Eric lost $200k.

Below is a recap of the February 3, 2012 episode of the ABC show Shark Tank (episode 301). If you are unfamiliar with Shark Tank, the concept is simple – entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of investors and the investors have to provide at least the amount the entrepreneur is seeking for a deal to be completed.

Pitch #1 – Chord Buddy

Founder Travis Perry created a plastic gadget that you place onto an acoustic guitar to help you learn how to play the guitar. As you learn how to play, you remove pieces of the Chord Buddy until you have completed removed the gadget and are playing completely solo. Travis was seeking 125k for a 10% investment.  Travis selected the offer from Robert Herjavec for 125k for 20% of Chord Buddy and in addition Robert will put 50k into an escrow account for a potential infomercial at a later time.

Update – CBS Foods

Shrimp burger manufacturer CBS Foods didn’t sign a deal last season on Shark Tank. The update explained that while no deal with completed on the television show, the company received a number of offers and has moved from 30k in sales before the Shark Tank appearance to a projected $5 million in sales this year.

Pitch #2 – Liquid Money

Founder Pat McCarthy demo’d his fragrance named Liquid Money. Available in both men’s and women’s versions, Liquid Money is supposed to smell like fresh, crisp US currency. Pat was seeking 100k for 5% and rejected the only offer from Damon for 100k for 80% of Liquid Money.

Pitch #3 – Tail Lightz

Kyle Rainey was up next with his Tail Lightz jean patches. Remember those patches we all sewed onto our jeans in the ’80s? Kyle has updated them with lights. He was seeking $50k for 50% of Tail Lights – no offers were presented from the Sharks.

Pitch #4 – You Smell

Last up on this episode was Megan Cummins presenting soaps under the brand name You Smell. The most interesting product in Megan’s line is the soap that was as thin as a piece of paper in a small package like Orbit gum – seemed good for traveling when the public restroom is out of soap. Megan was seeking $55k for 20%. This was a fierce battle from the sharks for the investment. The final offers were: Mark Cuban at 55k/20%, Barbara Corcoran at 55k/30% + 10 cents per bar sold, Robert Herjavec at 55k/20% + 50k first-year salary for Megan. Ultimately Megan selected Robert’s offer.

As a deal hunter, I’ve seen all sorts of, “buy x get y free” deals. But this deal might be the absolute oddest deal I’ve ever seen. If you head to Billings, Montana, you can pick up a free gun if you purchase a Dish Network system. Let me repeat that in case you were a bit confused just like I was the first time. You can get a free GUN if you purchase a satellite television system.

The Billings Gazette has all of the details of this offer. Radio Shack store owner Steve Strand noted regarding the free gun deal, “I think it really, really fits the Bitterroot Valley.”

Qualifying customers have the choice between a Hi Point 380 pistol or a 20-gauge shotgun. The deal is only good for new Dish Network customers and they must buy a certain amount of equipment to qualify for the free gun.

But have no fear, if you aren’t interested in a free SHOTGUN, you can opt to select a $50 Pizza Hut gift card instead.

If you select the pistol or the shotgun, you must pass a background check.  Store manager Fabian Levy notes, “We’re not just giving guns to felons.” I would hope not!

Lastly the store notes that while the current “gun with satellite” offer is for Dish Network, they will be expanding the offer to DirecTV next month.

Having been born and raised in NYC, my only response is, WTF???

Last month there was chatter that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) would launch a new streaming option for paid Prime customers. Amazon Prime is a shipping upgrade service that offers free 2-day shipping on items sold on Amazon and $3.99 for overnight shipping.

Today Amazon has taken over their homepage (similar to their Kindle launches) to promote a new feature of the Amazon Prime program. No longer just a shipping service, you can now stream 5,000 movies and television shows for free. I’ve scanned the available free streaming selection and found that while there aren’t any true new releases, there is plenty to watch.

Amazon notes that you can stream the movies and TV shows to your computer or to Internet-connected devices including blu-ray players and Internet-connected televisions.

On the television side you can watch a variety of series including:

• The Legend of Zelda: The Complete Animated Series
• Big Cat Diary Series 1
• All of the seasons of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood!!
• Unfortunately Silver Spoons, Transformers, Facts of Life, Diff’rent Strokes, and the A-Team are not included

On the movies side, you can watch Steven Seagal’s Hard to Kill but you have to pay to watch Above the Law.

I don’t think today’s announcement and launch by Amazon will affect RedBox and Blockbuster Express but it does target Netflix’s streaming service.

It does appear this new free streaming option is only available for paid Prime customers – so  if you are on the free Mom or Student programs, you are out of luck. You can signup for a free trial of Amazon Prime and the free trial does include the streaming option.

I am no longer on Amazon Mom but with this new streaming option, I am seriously considering purchasing an Amazon Prime subscription.

AdAge has released a new study looking at all of the primetime TV shows this fall season along with the prices for a 30-second spot on each. As one might expect, American Idol tops the list at just over $460,000 for a 30-second spot on the main show and $400,000 for a spot on the results show. Fox holds 5 of the top 10 most expensive shows which includes Glee, Family Guy, Simpsons and House.

The top 10 most expensive TV ad spots this season also includes Sunday Night Football, Grey’s Anatomy, The Office, Desperate Housewives and Two and a Half Men.

Popular tech shows Big Bang Theory and Outsources grab $195,000 and $122,900 respectively per 30-second spot.

And here we thought $1/click on Google was high! Have a look at the full report and see where your favorite shows rank.

I have to admit – I was not a regular viewer of the Rick Sanchez show on CNN. One of my experiences watching the show resulted in a post titled, “shame on you Rick Sanchez” which looked at how Mr. Sanchez dealt with Twitter being down and a story about a plane crash killing 15 people. In general I am not a fan of shows that just read content from Twitter and Facebook.

Apparently Rick Sanchez was fired from CNN today based on some comments he made. You can read the story here and here.

Blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick immediately wondered what will happen to the “RickSanchezCNN” (RSCNN) account. My comment on Marshall’s post was short, the account belongs to CNN. The reason is simple…the RSCNN account is the same property as a corporate cell phone or laptop. Sure it’s in the “virtual” computer space but the account belongs to CNN. If Sanchez gave out the number to his corporate cell phone to his family and friends, should he be able to keep that as well?

The RSCNN account isn’t alone – any of these accounts that are pushed by the corporation belong to the corporation. For example, QVC pushes their hosts to use hostnameQVC as their Facebook accounts – these belong to QVC.

Continue reading “Re: Rick Sanchez — What’s The Difference Between a Corporate Cell Phone and a Corporate Twitter Account?” »

Back in June we wrote about home shopping channel QVC’s launch of their Android app. I noted that they were pushing the app hard on television. It’s interesting to see QVC venturing further and further into the tech space. While their audience skews older, there’s no doubt that people of all ages are embracing technology more than ever and in new ways (especially mobile). Some of their hosts have Facebook pages and other hosts are pushing their blogs for interaction with viewers during the live shows.

Last week QVC announced the hiring of their first “multi-media host”. Atlanta-native Courtney Cason was selected by QVC and will apparently be their online connection. It looks like a “community manager” position although most of those positions don’t appear in front of the camera as often as it looks like Cason will. It will certainly be interesting to watch how QVC promotes this new content on the social media channels. My guess is that Cason’s ultimate goal is to introduce a younger generation of buyers to the world of QVC, either on TV, online or on a mobile device.

Cason’s LinkedIn profile shows a lot of intern positions and she was also the winning number picker for the Georgia Lottery.

The overview page for Courtney notes, “She could pop up anywhere, like QVC.com, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Cyber Hosting, blogs – tell us, where do you want to see her?”

It will be an interesting experiment to watch and if it works, other brands that skew to older consumers might want to consider a similar strategy.