The Discovery Travel Channel has shifted their programming criteria and I'll explain why (or why I think why?).Really it goes to the root of why people watch travel programming and why some travel programs do better in the rating than others.First of all, most of the people who watch travel programs don't really travel or don't travel much. They certainly don't go on treks into the Himalayas or visit exotic locations such as New Guinea or even New Zealand. Rather they are armchair travelers.Consider

Looking back at it and knowing what I know now it makes perfect sense why the Travel Channel didn't acquire my first program.Let me digress for a moment. Prior to producing my first television program on spec (ie I spent my own money, something that producers shouldn't normally do if they want to stay in business, but what you have to do when breaking into a new field of production) I had produced three feature films. Producing three feature films is a great resume if you want to produce a fourth

OK. So the first program 'The Best of Buenos Aires" is finished for acquisition and I send it off to the Travel Channel acquisition department.It usually takes two months for a network such as the Travel Channel to get back to you. When they did the news wasn't what I had wished for or, to be honest, expected. They decided for the moment not to acquire it, although of course they might buy it later; however, based on my submission they must have regarded me as a producer they might want to work

The second type of Travel program that the Travel Channel produces are hosted programs. At the time - back in 2002 when I attended the Real Screen Summit for the first time, the Travel Channel had several of these types of programs, the most well known being "Great Hotels" with Samantha Brown, produced by Pine Ridge Production out of Florida. The general consensusin the industry is that hosted programs get better ratings then non-hosted programs. The host develops a following over time and the

Let start at the beginning, our first travel program "The Best of Buenos Aires". How we got started.I think I can say that the travel production of CNI Cinema started in February 2002. Prior to that we were only producing feature films. We produced thee of them "The Kirlian Witness", distributed by Paramount Pictures, "Ramona", distributed by Curb Communications and "Best Beverly Hills, distributed by Trident Releasing.I was attending the excellent Real Screen Conference in Washington, D. C.. At

For the past few months I've been interviewing hundreds of job applicants to work on our travel programs. I've seen people who want to be presenters, operate the camera, direct, take sound, write scripts and project proposals, work in the sales and marketing, either ona full time or freelance basis.Also I've been interviewing for interns. Some interns are non film students, people that simply have no skills in filmmaking, have never worked on a film project before. Some are highly motivated to

In travel shows everything depends upon the presenter, in fact presenters can be more important then even the script. If you are fortunate enough to find a really great one, someone that the audience will tune in to wach and travel with time and time again, most of your work is done for you.You would be surprised at how many people think they have what it takes. Globe Trekker reported looked at over three thousand candidates when they started out. Ten years later and they really have only three top

heyyy..I'm rockin' the fox mon.