From the beginning I was amazed by the idea of reality shows, simply because YOU NEVER KNOW what's on, it is not like the old fashion shows that try to show you exactly what they think you want to watch. Old fashion shows tend to get boring and predictable, noticed ? I said predictable and that seems to be a bad property of a TV show, series writers know something about that and it is no secret that they try all the time to keep their shows exciting, interesting and most importantly unpredictable. Seriously won't it be less exciting if you could predict how the show ends ?
The unknown is a very complex subject and approaching it seems to be a shady business for most of people. But whoever started the Reality Shows business deserves a great deal of respect from me.
At some time someone said : "What the heck ? Let's put a group of people together and see how they act in front of cameras, we don't know what could happen but what's the worse that could happen ?". Since the people on reality shows are less likely to commit a crime when the whole world is watching, than putting them together is not so bad after all, the risks of this project are pretty low to me. On the other hand YOU NEVER KNOW what these people are going to do in front cameras, this means you are open to the interesting stuff they might do, it may get really exciting, but the point is YOU NEVER KNOW.
Risks VS Profits
In the example above are mentioned risks and profits of the project, let's illustrate :
Risks : on a reality show you never know what people on it are going to do, but what's the worse that could happen ? Someone build a nuclear bomb under cameras ? Someone commit a murder while the whole world is watching ? Not likely to happen ! Nothing excludes the possibility of such things to happen, but I dare to say it is very unlikely to happen. I just illustrated some extreme risks and not the risk of the show failing to gain popularity as it is a very common thing (I read in some Marketing book that most newly launched products are failures, this means that when a show fails it is not an extreme event).
Profits : on the other hand WE NEVER KNOW how successful the show is going to be which keeps the expectations of profits wide open, why ? Simply because of the nature of the unknown : We never know what is going to happen on a reality show. It is possible (we don't know how probable or improbable it is) the happening of an event that brings most of the world around television to watch. That would be a Black Swan and Black Swans do happen.
Bold decision
I see it as a bold and rare decision from the managers of whatever TV network decided first to launch a reality show, I respect their approach to the uncertain and the unknown.
The Spot
Even bolder than the idea of starting a reality : there is the idea of starting a spot that hosts reality shows. That way you maximize your chances of having the show that would make you very successful, have you ever heard of "Pimp my ride"? A famous reality shows about modifying cars that shows on MTV, guess who introduced me to the other : MTV or "Pimp my ride" ? Actually I wasn't personally a big fan of MTV ( I don't know why !?) but it is that show what broutgh to watch that channel, not only "Pimp my ride" but also other reality shows that I may like or not (I liked some of them by the way). More than my personal experience what matter are the aggregate effect of MTV's policy on the popularity of the network. I will illustrate with another example.
What you think made the other one famous ? Was it YouTube that made people's videos famous ? Or were they the videos of everybody that made YouTube a success ? I can see that it works both ways but I dare to say that YouTube became famous from the videos posted on it. Notice that the creators of YouTube didn't bother to hire show writers and directors and all the costs that come with that : they simply created a Spot for the unpredictable : a Spot for Blog Swans. Just go on YouTube and look for the videos seen by millions of people, isn't amazing how many Black Swans they caught?
I decided to start this blog in the aim of finding practical ways of living in a world in which Black Swans DO HAPPEN, practical ways to deal with them in the fields where decision making has big influence on our future : investing and management.
I chose this topic to be my first article to illustrate in a simple way that we can approach the unknown in ways that limit risks and stay wide open to positive consequences.
