Disrupting Television
"I
wish there were a knob on the TV so you could turn up the
intelligence.
They
got one marked 'brightness' but it don't work, does it?"
~ Leo
Anthony Gallagher
"Television:
A medium - so called because it is neither rare nor well done."
~
Ernie Kovacs
Beginning in
November 2017, I was asked by one of the legends of the freedom
movement, Melinda Pillsbury-Foster, to join in a series of conference
calls about a set of really ground-breaking projects that address
homelessness, the financial crisis of 2007-present, risks attending
polluting industries, and safe and environmentally sound solutions to
real-world problems in building materials, insect control, and
re-building after earthquakes, tornadoes, and wildfires.
This week Melinda is
in Las Vegas at FreedomFest.com
in ThePitchTank.com presenting
the ideas she and her team have come up with for
FreedomTVNetworks.com.
The revenue model that I just built for them projects their
enterprises generating $1.7 billion in 2019 and upwards of $23
billion revenues by 2022. The pitch in the first rounds today went
well, the winner is a widget that does DNA stuff and they may be
raising funds to have a show on our networks.
So, what is the
purpose of making television interactive, and why should you care? I
myself don't own a television and haven't for months. After all,
there are hundreds of channels but nothing worth watching. Oh, I
suppose I could have kept the DVD player and watched some of the
films I own on DVD, but I still have over 200 books inherited from my
parents which I haven't read. Books are more fun, for me.
Interactive
television is something you've seen in tiny morsels. America's Most
Wanted, for example, provided a call-in number to report criminals,
thereby encouraging a tattle-tale culture. America's Got Talent and
similar shows allowed viewers to rate or support contestants who were
good at singing, dancing, comedy, or, quite often, not much at all.
All the way back in 1992, a dark horse nearly unknown candidate was
about to quit the race when he was invited on a "Phone Voter"
television show, in which audience interactions led to his decision
to continue in the race. His name was Bill Clinton.
We Can Do Better
The Freedom
Interactive Television Networks Association was created with the idea
that we can make better television shows, do so profitably, and tell
people about a lot of better ways of doing things. Further, we can
interact with audiences and learn from them, so making our shows
better. Best of all, using a crypto-currency of our design, we can
pay viewers for interacting, responding to polls, participating in
focus groups, and they can use those crypto-tokens (use tokens) to
pay for per-view events or special films, or goods and services.
Several show
concepts have already been developed so we're ready to roll out as
soon as we bring in the capital we need.
Percentage As You
Earn
One of the
innovations we're focusing on is changing the way mortgages, auto
loans, student loans, and personal loans are made in this world.
Currently, collateral loans require a fixed payment every month, and
if you miss more than a small integer (three or so) the lender begins
foreclosure proceedings. This sort of lending resulted in the
financial crisis that began in 2007, became really bad in 2009, and
is still with us in many ways.
There is a better
way. What if you paid 7% of your earnings, whether your earnings
went up or down? And if you had no earnings for a while, 7% of zero
would be zero. So people with intermittent earnings, and people
whose earnings rise and fall either seasonally or for other reasons,
would not face losing their home. Or car. Or credit worthiness.
It turns out that
there is ample historic precedent for percentage-as-you-earn lending.
It was used very successfully to obviate the "indentured
servitude" contracts that were chattel slavery with a thin
veneer of disguise. Changing to percentage-earned contracts helped
encourage many settlers to cross the Atlantic. The same system was
also used in privateers during the American revolutionary war, the
second globe-spanning war of the 18th Century. Thousands of
privately chartered and financed war ships captured much more British
shipping on a per warship basis than did the government funded ships.
More recently, the system was very successfully tested by Jack Kemp
during his time at Housing and Urban Development.
We anticipate
helping millions of Americans get homes, or convert from rip-off
mortgages to better financing. And we have a number of heavy-hitters
looking to place capital in this new way.
What Happened
to that Other Deal?
Back in December
2017 I was engaged to write a business plan for a travel-related
crypto-currency. The plan I wrote focused on rapidly deploying
technology available from Ascension.Foundation to mint several
hundred million units of TravelCash. The plan found enthusiasm among
the network of friends and family of the three founders. Funds were
raised, a securities lawyer of my acquaintance was engaged who
suggested selling shares of stock and using TravelCash to pay
dividends. Three corporations were formed. Additional consultants
and law firms were hired. Although I advised against it, the company
chose a strategy of seeking to have their crypto-currency registered
as a security. They also pursued a know-your-customer strategy for
all further sales of TravelCash, using a reliable crowd-engine
service to handle the gathering of identity data and accreditation
data. Perhaps that strategy will succeed, but given my extensive
published works both online and in book form, it seems clear that I
cannot help them gain government approval of their registered
security, and I've left the company. The sentences in this paragraph
are my understanding of what happened.
How Can You Help?
There's a lot going
on, and FreedomTVNetworks is working fast to build our team, design
our crypto-currency, implement some new software, and get our
television networks up and running. You can check out our web site,
follow us on Twitter and other social media, and take a look at our
crowd funding when those premiums are up and running.
FreedomTvNetworks.com
------
Jim Davidson is an
entrepreneur, author, and peace activist.
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