|
|
 |
| Special Feature |
|
Digital TV Rides Along with RIDES
Barry Willis
04/06/2004
|
Hot rods are among the deepest, strongest threads in the fabric of American culture. Anyone with a finger on the national pulse could have predicted that a high-definition television (HDTV) show on the topic would be an instant hit.
Anyone, that is, except programming executives at Discovery HD, who last year tentatively accepted a pilot offered them by producer Bud Brutsman and director/editor Steve Bebee. As Brutsman tells it, Discovery had many doubts about the glossy show and its equally glossy subject, and voiced objections to both its content and style. Rides’ cinematic look was, according to top brass, "too big a departure" from the company's usual fare, Brutsman says.
The Brentwood Communications International Inc. (BCII) partners worked long and hard creating the show's first episode and equally hard pitching it. It finally found a spot on The Learning Channel (TLC), where programmers struggled to see how it would fit it into the lineup. All involved had hoped to see its debut in April of 2003, following a long promotional effort. But in early February of that year, the Columbia space-shuttle disaster forced TLC to postpone a documentary on the space shuttle Challenger, NASA’s previous tragedy. Rides was unceremoniously inserted in its place.
The unannounced broadcast didn't draw a huge audience, but TLC re-ran Rides in prime time the following Tuesday. The show’s first fifteen minutes scored a rating of only 0.8—not very encouraging—but its viewership doubled every quarter-hour, ending with a respectable 1.8. "Basically, we hooked a bunch of channel surfers," Brutsman says. They also hooked TLC and its parent, Discovery HD, which contracted with BCII to deliver a full season of episodes. | 
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
