The good lady never fails to surprise- and impress us: She takes the bull by the horns, she cuts through the bull, she does her own thing, she pays lip service to no one, she knows how to play the game and she never stops trying to advance the racing product. Little wonder that she is Racing’s First Lady and if she doesn’t get a mention soon in the Queen’s Honours List, we’ll bite both our elbows.
Is she being utilized effectively by racing in Oz which has been plagued- again- with scandal after scandal? In a word, No.
Frankly, Lady GaiGai is bigger than “just racing.” She and Daughter Kate would be wonderful ambassadors for Australian tourism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmbP9kUEBmY
The Waterhouse ladies are no Bingle Dingles. They are not geographically-challenged, their “universe” is large, they are intelligent, attractive ladies open to looking at new ways of talking about the same old things, they know how to play the game and how to use the game to their benefit and which leads us to what some call the “Gai Waterhouse TV Show.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CoxAWlBtwM
Is it a another racing “television show”? Hmmmm, not really. It’s a fucking marketing and creative breakthrough and if one were to really sit and not think about it too much, this “TV show” is a brilliant little idea that can only grow- and fast. Over-thinking by committees only kills the spontaneity of a good idea and with those in these committees thinking they need to prove their intelligence and “worth” to the CEO by yakking about what’s wrong- it often isn’t- and not what’s right and providing solutions instead of problems while working in fear of the big NOT INVENTED HERE sign hovering over them. What does this often result in? Clichés and tired blinkered thinking.
As for Gai Waterhouse, the good Lady knows that Content Is King or Queen and what she has created has caught many on the hop- even if they might know it. Yet. Now, watch this first “episode” again and realize that in this mobile-driven online world, this is also a “mobisode”, something we have been banging on about for around two years. And gee, young Adam Hieronymus sure makes a good straight man to the Mad Hatter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CoxAWlBtwM
Just like the how the demise of the CD tore into the bowels of the music industry, terrestrial television is a very much an endangered species with sites like Apple TV not just nipping but taking chunks off the heels of the major television networks in the US.
As for racing shows and programmes on terrestrial and even cable television, these have a captive audience and which can only continue to dwindle and with the same old same old saying and listening to the same old same old.
Racing on television has reached a saturation level and it ain’t going anywhere anymore. It’s like crappy online betting sites. Racegoers who are no longer happy to belong to some dead Old Boys Club are looking for new ways of enjoying racing, finding this on their own, taking information and making it their own and giving a drop-kick to being force fed tips, speed maps, fitness levels and other Old School ways of looking at racing.
Even all the money spent on websites for racing clubs are under siege as they are clutter- too much sizzle and very little beef and tough to navigate and even when having visited them, they often leaving you wondering, Why the fuck did I bother?
As for those who seriously think these sites and their boring content are interesting to viewers, well, it’s all a bit like the Emperor’s New Robes, isn’t it and where they are not visitors and viewers and so fail to understand them along with being unable to see the forest for the trees and change course.
Getting back to the “Gai Waterhouse TV Show”, the great Lady has outpaced nearly everyone- again- and is strengthening her brand. A brand for anyone and any product or any racing club is all-important today. It has a domino effect- in a positive way- by attracting and leading to sponsorship, new business streams and taking this content, expanding on it and creating something which will help racing enter the much bigger world of entertainment.
One catch: We might beat her to it- but competition is good for the mind and soul. Then again, if this content somehow inter-faces with the quite excellent racing site that is www.tomwaterhouse.com, we’re fucked.
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