by Natasha Mekhail
Television news’ lust for the three Cs (car crashes, crime and corpses) is losing its appeal. Nielsen ratings for nightly newscasts dropped 44 per cent between 1980 and 2004. Market research says news depresses people. No surprise there. But the endless parade of social, environmental and political problems triggers another sentiment: helplessness. The folks behind Quantum Shift TV think they’ve found a chaser for the grim aftertaste of television news. They’re making (and taking) news stories focused on solutions rather than problems. Stories that inspire, but aren’t preachy; entertain, but aren’t sensational. Quantumshift.tv, which launched last May, has been described as YouTube with a conscience. Former hotel executive Hugo Bonjean, the CEO of Quantum Shift, lives in the foothills southwest of Calgary. (His leadership team includes Leif Utne, son of Utne Reader founder Eric Utne and a longtime contributor to the publication.) As Bonjean explains, Quantum Shift began with common sense.
What’s the idea behind Quantum Shift TV?
That problems aren’t inspiring. It’s not news anymore that the environment is in trouble. It’s not news anymore that people are dying from hunger. That bores me to death. The Max Planck Society, one of the world’s best research institutes on global warming, did a study to see what prompted people to action. It sounds obvious, but when people see others doing things, they are more likely to do it themselves. That’s the idea behind sharing stories: they provide ideas.
Why did you choose an internet format?
That is where everything is moving to. Traditional television stations are trying to get onto the internet, rather than the other way around. And since we have our own production department, we can also approach existing TV networks to run our programs.
Is “YouTube with a conscience” the right description?
It’s a good start. But we do our own production, including a daily news program. We also have a different format for uploading. Whereas you can put anything on YouTube, a video uploaded to Quantum Shift TV is screened by our editorial staff. It needs to be of good quality, focused on environmental and social issues and have the intention of moving people to action. I stopped counting but we’ve had hundreds of submissions from around the planet.
Give some examples of topics covered in your news show.
I particularly enjoyed one about a program that returns glass to the beach where it is mixed with sand – one of the coolest examples of recycling that I’ve come across. Another is something most people don’t know about the television series 24: they’re making the entire season carbon neutral. We covered Angelina Jolie’s activities in Darfur, cheap irrigation projects in Africa and underground pressure storage for wind power. We also highlight new technologies and social responsibility news from corporations, like McDonald’s bio-diesel project, Google’s hybrid challenge and Phillips’ goal of increasing green product revenues from 15 to 30 per cent.
What’s it like being based in Calgary when your site is international?
Our legal seat is in Calgary and we’re funded by a number of Calgary angel investors but that’s where it ends. We are a true virtual company, which means we don’t have an office. We live on Skype. Our team members are from Panama, the U.S. and Canada. We broadcast to the world so it doesn’t matter where we’re based.
How does Quantum Shift make money?
It’s an advertising business model and we’re set up as a hybrid: Quantum Shift is a for-profit business but a quarter of our pre-tax profits go to non-profit organizations. Coming out of the business world, I’m a very big believer in business and entrepreneurship. But I think it can be directed differently, bringing ethics back in and looking at how business can be good for society.
What’s the ultimate goal?
I’ll consider the mission accomplished when FOX and other major TV stations start to focus on solutions and inspire people through their storytelling.
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