Rant: Hmmm…we’re getting a sense BBC Earth might be kinda kicking its Svalbard docu-soap under the rug

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Simple test: do a Google search for “BBC Earth” and see how many results you have to scroll through before finding anything about the ten-part Svalbard docu-soap debuting in a couple of days.

We scrolled through the first 100 results – both overall and during the past 24 hours – and got nothing. A Google News search was barely more promising, linking to a vague article on Polish and a Svalbard travel tips article by a producer who was here briefly. There’s no mention of the show in dozens of posts on BBC Earth’s Facebook during the past month. Ditto for Twitter.

(Keep in mind, we do a lot of searches related to Svalbard – and more recently the BBC series – so we’re assuming our results are probably better than those trying this at home.)

Yet there’s a buzzworthy amount of stuff about the channel’s other offerings, including another Arctic community on the other side of the world. Which raises the question: are the higher-ups figuring the ten-part reality TV show “Svalbard: Life on the Edge” is destined to become a high-priced bomb or yawner before it airs?

Which is when we sent all of what we just wrote to a producer of the series for a response. As of Friday night there has been no response – but stayed tuned since we’ll be meeting two of the show’s execs in person tomorrow.

Yes, they’re running a TV ad for the show, but at least in Norway it appears to be on the channel itself, meaning it’ll be seen only by those inclined to watch BBC Earth anyhow. Aside from several articles published during the past month in Norway – logical, since the show was filmed here, the most coverage seems to happening in Poland of all places. We’re seeing nothing from the BBC’s motherland.

What are seeing on BBC Earth’s Facebook page:

Yawn video

Penguin kidnap show

Oklahoma, Antarctica: The windiest place on Eath

A show about a small Arctic town on the other side of the planet

Along with a show about Siberia and other cold-weather regions.

So…omen or overthinking? We should know in about 24-hours after getting a “cast only” screening of the first episode.

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.

marksabbatini@yahoo.com

http://icepeople.net