Blood, Sweat and Tears

In all the excitement of the comings and goings of the past week, one anniversary has been overlooked.

No, it is not the 1000th time that Hans has uttered the words 'ganz nackte' but something much more fundamental to the success or failure of the channel. For in the second week of May 2007 we saw the birth of the plasma.

Maybe this is a fitting word for this and it's connection with blood. Blood is used to re-vitalise life. Yet the loss of too much blood will also serve to end life.

So what was the effect of the plasma on the fortunes of ETV ? In the begining, the new blood served the purpose for which it was designed. It brought in the income as many were prepared to provide the transfusion. But the same donors can not always provide sufficient blood. So the cry goes out for even more donors and with a limited supply the price increases and very soon the supply becomes a trickle and the life slowly but surely goes out.

The plasmas had another detrimental effects on the channel. Previously, there was the relationship between the moderators and standard SMS senders. Before the coming of the VIPs you also heard another famous saying 'extra fur dich'. Here was the reward to the senders. Quite often the choice of the reward was in the hand of the moderator. But he/she was fair and you would get the broad spectrum of each girl in the studio - they all had their set piece. Since then, it became a lottery and I well remember many a show where the SMSs were for just one girl out of six(or more) with the rest to pick up the crumbs.

The standard SMS senders soon realised that there was little point to continue to send them. So the net result was that, in money terms, and in a long term, once the novelty wore off, the income of the channel could actually be seen to fall.

So rather than bring in the new blood, the plasma serves to drain away the existing blood. Very clever. A quick fix but not a long term solution. You could say a case of blood, sweat and tears.

And on to this week's comment.

We claim to be professional. After all we have been doing this for a long time now. We should understand about lighting. We should understand about exposure. We should understand about colour balance. So how difficult is it to get the lighting right without showing models overexposed (and I do not mean that in the literal sense) or having light blotches on their skin. I will not mention last night's 'temporary fault' with one camera in almost permanent Black and White. Oops, sorry. Seems that I just did.

I'm sure you will manage to fix all of these within the next 3 years.

And today I close with an apology. It is all my fault. It was I that suggested the return of theme nights that would run on specific evenings. So blame me for the Mittwoch mess with the flurry of feathers and the stoopid cardboard masks.

And also blame me for the rash suggestion that there was no place for men in front of the camera. So our theater directrix solved that one with a blonde wig and a dress.'She' really should have shaved her legs tho.

Right you are, as usual, DB.
The plasma was a good idea in the beginning, but now deteriorated to an annoyance.
It should only be used for messages to the girls, not for advertisements and contact wishes.
Today it seems even be necessary to write VIPs for footshows; especially the not so experienced female moderators seem to promote the VIPs for everything.
Btw did you know that the trigger for installing the plasmas came from a viewer? (not me, beware!)