Unleashing Your Media Potential: Build Your Own Show

It's not the publishing CEO in New York or London. It's not the radio executive deciding who gets the Saturday evening talk show host. It's ourselves, because gatekeepers have lost power. And if you want to have a show seen by a lot of people, one avenue is to kind of get lucky and have ITV or BBC hire you. Sky TV can hire you, it's possible. But another avenue where you're taking much more proactive control over your life is to just start doing it today. Building an audience member one at a time. I did my first TV show in the late 1980s and I physically had to drive to every TV station and about a 800 mile range in the state of Florida. I would knock on doors of program managers at TV station. There was no Internet back then.

Yeah, that's right.

Not even that much cable. I had to knock on doors.

Yeah.

And I finally was able to talk program managers into carrying my show. Went one station in each market. And you know what? After two years I, I law I was probably a hundred thousand dollars in debt. I wasn't able to get them to pay me. It was just syndication, just a, a joint venture syndication deal. So I personally was never some big national network TV star or syndicated talk show host as far as making big money. But I don't hate to sound like I'm bragging or like the ugly American who thinks money's the only thing that matters. I frankly made a lot more money than most network TV reporters or hosts because I have built an independent base through things like online video courses and YouTube and books and training and consulting and speaking and workshops. I built my own business as opposed to just being an employee. I mean, being an employee at a big TV network, if it lasts for 30 years, great. But these days you can be hot. One moment. I mean, just yesterday, a top reporter analyst at E. Espn, the major sports network here in the United States, he was making a million dollars a year close to the town. And later the day he was fired. We don't want to pay you anymore. It happens every day in the media. And I like frankly not being able to be fired. I mean, I have thousands and thousands of customers and some clients every month. Therefore I'm not dependent on anyone. So I would just toss that out to you as a possibility because to me, I see the people who have the most fun these days are not working for big TV networks. The people I know at work at big TV networks, they go in every day scared like, oh, the whole network is going to get shut down. I'M going to get fired. They're 28 years old. They're worried about being replaced by a 21 year old who will work for $10,000 a year. Everyone is nervous and scared at big TV networks. Whereas you look at. Sorry to give this reference again, if he's not as well known to you, but well known American podcaster Joe Rogan. He's doing his show, he looks really relaxed. If he wants to talk to someone for an hour and a half, he will. If he wants to talk to someone for four and a half hours, he will. He asks whatever he wants, he dresses the way he wants, he takes what sponsors he, I mean, at this point he's been paid hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. He can just decide he doesn't want to come to work for two weeks or month and he's, he's in charge. And to me, it's not that we all want to have to be Joe Rogan, but I think for those of us who desire to communicate, which I sense you do, who desire, who enjoy some aspect of performing in front of a camera, which if that's the goal, I understand. If someone just gives you a talk show host or it falls in your lap, take it. But I think even then the people who are most successful are still focusing their energy on podcasts here in the United States. Top network TV host like Seth Rogen, like Bill Maher, all have podcasts too, because they're all preparing for the day when the network goes under or says we don't want you anymore. They're building their own independent audience. They're building their own independent media companies. That's what I think the future is. And that's changed even since the, the course I made that you took on how to be a news anchor. It's changed a lot. I should probably update that.

Yeah, I can imagine. But it was still good because it's still got all the basics that you need to know because you need to have that knowledge. And even like you say, just reading the news, it's all to do with your body language, the movement, you know, you can't, it was just so beneficial for me to on that course and you know, just give me so much confidence and I just know it's the right path I want to go down. Maybe, you know, if I'm not successful to be an ITV news presenter, if it's way above me, I can be doing me, just carry on doing me podcast worldwide. And this is why I want, I.

Apologize, but I want to caution you thinking of it as above you is one way of looking at it. What if you're above it? What if you could actually create a show and talk just about what you want to talk about to help the people you care about the most and talk to the most interesting people in the world that you want to talk to? Wouldn't that be far above having What, a set 30 minute or hour break where you got to talk about news, weather and sports and a lot of stuff you don't care about on itv? Wouldn't that actually be better?

Yes, it would. Yes.

The other thing about if you, if you create your own independent media company, no one can ever force you to retire. You know, the people who have their own independent base do it till the day they die or whatever, they just want to hang it up. They, they don't have to worry about some network executive saying, oh, you know, tj, your, your hairline doesn't look as good as it used to be, or you're getting a double chin sa.