Online social networking leaders MySpace have joined forces with British-born reality TV producer Mark Burnett to launch the search for an independent presidential candidate. Burnett has been behind some of America's biggest reality shows, including the runaway hit Survivor, and is credited with a hand in The Apprentice, Rock Star and The Contender, to name a few.
Now, a new political reality TV show in the pipeline, titled Independent, is offering a $1mn cash prize to find a potential Presidential candidate for the 2008 Presidential Election. This generous cash prize is offered with an intriguing twist: the winner doesn't keep the money. Rather the 'winnings' are used to fund the run for the White House.
Set to launch in early 2008, the contestants are encouraged to embrace their public and interact directly with supporters and protesters alike. MySpace will set up an interactive 'Town Hall' where budding social bloggers can rate the performance of each candidate. Potential candidates can audition by posting a MySpace Video online, alongside which they can create an interactive MySpace Impact profile if they make it past the selection process. This will track their progress right through the campaign.
Ultimately the show is hoping to entice a younger demographic to the polling stands and stir up interest in those that would otherwise have little interest in the entire process.
The first major hurdle for Burnett however, is to secure a contract from a TV network. MySpace is owned by Fox Interactive Media, part of Rupert Murdoch's news empire. This means that potentially, it may join the ranks of the network's existing set of popular reality TV shows, if it gains enough momentum online.
MySpace already hosts MySpace pages from the contest's major candidates and plans to hold a MySpace Presidential Primary on January 1st and 2nd prior to any official state primaries; each user will be asked to vote for their favourite candidate. At present, the candidate with the highest number of friends on their MySpace profile is Democratic Senator Barack Obama, who currently claims 142,180 friends.
