Networks Must Hate This
My take is Kareem Rahma is the new Anthony Bourdain.
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My take is Kareem Rahma is the new Anthony Bourdain.
I’ve been wrong about a lot of this. Over the last few months in this newsletter, I’ve been mulling over how social creators and traditional TV networks converge. Specifically, how the new great talk shows are on social, existing in an entirely new format, how networks could build their own farm teams to leverage this talent and change, and why these social personalities wouldn’t want to actually join the networks. I’ve been wrong about so much, but that’s what writing these newsletters is all about.
During all of this though, I wondered: “If (Anthony) Bourdain were alive today, would Parts Unknown still be on air? Would CNN still back it?” And I argued, so righteously and obviously, “the next Bourdain isn’t emerging from The New Yorker; they’re coming up on YouTube.”
To put a finer point on it, if an authentic and charismatic host who had the unique ability to talk to anyone and explore different cultures through the lens of, say, food, walked into CNN, would they give them a show?
Turns out the answer is yes, they would give him a show, but he would get so frustrated with the process that he would just take it back to YouTube.
After CNN kept his show in development for seven months, Kareem Rahma, as you know, just relaunched Keep the Meter Running on YouTube.
“I did the whole rigmarole with television, and it was a disaster,” Rahma told Deadline. “I don’t want to wait anymore. I walked away from the deal and decided to do it independently on YouTube.”
Shows don’t need to be 30 minutes. They don’t need to fit a mold. They need to be real and entertaining, and it needs to be easy to get them in front of people.
So my take is Kareem Rahma is the new Anthony Bourdain. Not because he’s going to be a global celebrity, though he already is well there. But because he’s creating work that’s genuine, good-hearted, and connects with a giant audience. Because his crew working on the show will feel like they’re creating something genuinely good and bigger than them that will stand the test of time, and they’re going to have such a good time doing it.
Bravo Kareem.
Public.Work
When it comes to looking for free images to use, there’s nothing less inspiring than Unsplash. Recently, I’ve become very fond of Public.work. This is a search engine of 100,000+ copyright-free images from The MET, New York Public Library, and other places that allows users to use them for commercial purposes. It feels like thumbing through a stack of old books and magazines at a flea market, minus the dust and torn pages.
RosSereySothea
Wow, radio this track immediately.