I got a tip about this Friday, but didn’t follow it up since we were busy with a rather more urgent tip: That Lloyd Braun was leaving. Of course, it didn’t really turn out to be that, but this story is indicative of the level of projects being thought up at Yahoo, and if they don’t work, then the repercussion from that might be far and wide within the company. (Our tip was also that Braun and Mark Burnett had a shouting match over the details of this show Friday, though there’s no way I can verify that.)
The story details, with some amount of scoopster-glee, that Yahoo is attempting to take “The Runner,” a reality TV concept abandoned by ABC, and revive it as a website. This was a show Braun said yes to at his stint at ABC, but it didn’t work there due to insurance problems and other logistical reasons, as the WSJ story explains.
The revived show has been in development for six months by Mark Burnett and LivePlanet, a production company co-founded by actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, but issues remain over the cost of the show too: ranging from a few million to more than $10 million dollars. It remains possible that Yahoo and the producers would eventually try to spin off a TV show based on the show, and ABC would possibly get a first crack at it.
Some other interesting details:
– Kevin Sites’ site on Yahoo is not doing that well in terms of readership and audience, though keep in mind that Yahoo probably knew that getting into the project. It is more about giving out the right signals for them.
– A Yahoo adventure travel site authored by Richard Bangs that made its debut in October gets even fewer visitors.
Variety: If it does move forward, “The Runner” could go live as soon as this summer and would likely unfold over the course of one to two months. Scheduling is a big question: Internet usage is down in the summer, but a fall launch would mean competing against the broadcast networks’ new shows.
My bullshit detector: Reading both these stories in WSJ and Variety, something feels out of place…I’ve been in this tips and “people familiar with the matter” game for so long that I know it when I see it: this smells like a leak. Too much gloating over the project, from unnamed sources, yet trying to balance it with “oh, Braun’s stint till now hasn’t yet been a success” line is in there too. My conspiracy theory says this is a leak from Burnett side to pressure Semel to greenlight the project. Or I could be completely wrong…
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