Channelling Trump - The Economist

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21709071-candidates-fan-base-has-what-it-takes-support-new-tv-service-channelling-trump?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/channellingtrump

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AS HIS chances of making it to the White House have narrowed in recent weeks, another avenue has opened for Donald Trump. The notion that he might start his own media network has been the subject of speculation for months. Now industry executives are discussing the possibility in some detail.

In September the Republican candidate’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, owner of the New York Observer, asked his friend Aryeh Bourkoff, a banker who has been a dealmaker in the media industry, for advice. (A spokeswoman for Mr Bourkoff said he personally had no interest in such a project). Mr Trump himself has denied any intention to start a network. But a look at the numbers suggests that Trump TV could be a success, media folk say—far from a juggernaut like Fox News, which has revenues of more than $2 billion a year, but lucrative nonetheless.

Such a product would have a good shot at going mainstream because Mr Trump could sell it directly to consumers over the internet, as a subscription streaming service. The Trump brand may now be too toxic for a publicly-owned media company to go into business with him. “I would suspect there would be internal protests from women, Muslims and Hispanics and probably many others as well,” says Jeff Gaspin, former chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment (the company that made Mr Trump a reality-TV star with “The Apprentice”). An internet-only service would solve that problem. And industry analysts argue that his recent stepping up of attacks on the media and on Hillary Clinton for allegedly “rigging” the election have stoked the passions of his strong supporters—which could help turn more into Trump TV subscribers.

The business model could well look like former Fox News personality Glenn Beck’s subscription streaming network, which shortly after its launch in 2011 claimed 300,000 subscribers, each paying $9.95 a month (though it has since sputtered). Mr Gaspin, who has helped launch similar subscription services in the past, reckons that Mr Trump, with his committed fan base, a social-media following of 24m on Twitter and Facebook, and his talent and energy for self-promotion, could quickly attract 250,000 to 500,000 subscribers. At $100 a year each that would equate to $25m to $50m in revenue, on perhaps $7m to $8m in production costs.


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