Back in November, Bruce Firestone spoke at the Saskatchewan Economic Development Association and Mainstreet conferences about Mainstreet transformations, keeping towns vibrant, and creative ways for small town businesses to stay open.
One of his suggestions is bringing a television crew into a small town and filming their transformations.
He has his pitches on his website and he knows what he wants to bring to small town revitalization.
Firestone has a lot of good ideas when it comes to creative marketing and small town reinvention.
He is an old hand in the reality business so he knows the importance of mainstreet revitalization.
He wants to bring in agritainment, mixed generation communities, leisure opportunities and growing a local movement.
He knows where he wants to take this project.
He wants Canada to see the importance of downtown and small town revitalization.
But what would a television producer see? Where would they want to take the program?
Firestone wants to take the project to HGTV, which is a program that would be along their lines of programming. How would they turn it from the small town focus to selling television to viewers focus?
This is an interesting if slow process. From renovations of downtowns to increasing traffic into the downtown core to getting permits and changing town bi-laws, all of this takes time.
That does not define the television programs that people look for today.
You need ratings and viewers to keep the process going and that may not be what the project needs.
Filming the process is also a very public thing. Are people just going to support the project, not just for the sake of providing a small Saskatchewan town with a better livelihood and a new and vital downtown to sustain them, but just for the sake of appearing on TV and claiming that slice of fame?
Will this create a false sense of security for the town?
Yes, it will advertise to other small towns the importance of downtown revitalization and having a healthy downtown core but security brought on on the back of a television show does not make it a complete success.
Television fame adds a new level of success that other towns may not be able to get. This may shine a negative light on the whole process in the eyes of any downtown that are not able to get their own television crew in to brighten their own town.
Yes, there could be some positives from turning town revitalization into a new reality television show.
But there are a few questionable outcomes that could come from inviting a television crew to put a vulnerable town under the microscope.
