Hay House Tries Pay-Per-View
Roxane Farmanfarmaian -- Publishers Weekly, 3/22/1999
On April 10 from 9-11 p.m. EST, Hay House will host Adventures with a Psychic, the first live pay-per-view event to feature an author -- in this case, clairvoyant Sylvia Browne, whose book of the same name has been a New York Times bestseller for more than 20 weeks. To promote the event, an aggressive ad campaign will air on pay TV for the first 10 days of April."We're trying to develop a new market," said Reid Tracy, v-p of Hay House, an inspirational publishing house in Los Angeles founded by Louise Hay. "In pay-per-view there are two main franchises -- wrestling and boxing. We're hoping to establish a third." To encourage audience participation, the cost of the show will be only $15, considerably less than the $45 that wrestling and boxing matches often cost. The author will speak and do readings during the show. A special phone number will be set up for viewers to call and ask questions.
Adventures of a Psychic will be taped at the studio of talk show host Montel Williams in New York City, who has often featured Browne over the last eight years. The Montel Williams studio also produced the ads, although Tracy noted that all distribution and promotion are being handled by Hay House.
Browne's book was published by Signet in 1991, but it did not become a bestseller until Hay House reprinted it in September 1998.
"If this is a success, we will do it again in three months," said Tracy, who explained he would like to do pay-per-views with other authors. The event will be available through cable systems via Viewers Choice and Direct TV, which together reach well in excess of 40 million homes. "We need to get over 40,000 people to sign up for this to be worth doing again," he said.
Talkback
Related Content
Related Content
PW PARTNERS
