Fear.net Connects to ‘Jeopardy!’ Salute
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 6/22/2007 1:23:00 PM
We’ll take corporate synergy for $200 please, Alex!
On June 14, FEARnet, Comcast’s video-on-demand and online horror channel, was one of the categories onthe ever-popular syndicated quiz show Jeopardy! What’s the connection? FEARnet, which debuted last Halloween, is a joint venture of Comcast, Sony Pictures Entertainment and indie horror-movie studio Lionsgate Entertainment. Sony Pictures Television, an SPE unit, produces Jeopardy!
“For us, it’s a testament that we have very good partners that we’re working with in Lionsgate and Sony, and they definitely really want to make this work, and they’re pulling [out] all their marketing tools,” FEARnet president Diane Robina said.
Jeopardy’s FEARnet questions were strictly drawn up by the show, Robina said. She was told not to help out on that front when contacted by executive producer Harry Friedman in the spring. “We just really kind of told them about the network,” she said.
The answers – to which contestants supply questions -- were more about FEARnet than the horror genre. One example: “As voted by FEARnet members, the most popular shockers include The Shining and this ’73 Linda Blair film.” The question: “What is The Exorcist?”
FEARnet has used the clip as an “ice breaker” in meeting media buyers, some of whom assume it was made for the presentation and didn’t air on the show. “And I go, ‘It’s real!’” Robina said. “The funny thing is, people [in the meetings] are shouting out the answers, because everybody loves Jeopardy!”
“It’s worked very well for us pitching the clients, and also, when you’re in Jeopardy!, you’re definitely hitting pop culture,” she said.
