Gas Station TV Looking for a Fill-up Friendly Face
Drivers who dread today’s high gas prices may find they can take the pain out of the pump by entering Gas Station TV’s “Wanna Be a BroadcaStar” talent search for an on-screen host.
The away-from-home television network is looking for a personality to host lifestyle features on technology, health, entertainment, travel, sports and more on its network of 5,000 screens located on gas pumps and in gas station convenience stores in more than 400 U.S. cities.
GSTV is conducting an online talent search to find this person, accepting video submissions at beabroadcaSTAR.com from now until May 4. The Web site asks entrants to “tell a joke (clean), retell a sports segment, dish some juicy gossip” or demonstrate some tech gadget in a 30-second video and submit the clip to the site. The contest will also run a live “American Idol”-style casting call in its Detroit home market on April 12.
Viewers will be able to cast their votes for the winning submissions at the BroadcaStar Web site from May 12 to June 30. They can return to vote once a day for as many days as they like; visitors who log in to vote will be entered into a sweepstakes for a $10,000 cash prize. The competition and voting will also be promoted on YouTube and in social media with MySpace and Facebook pages.
The creator of the winning video, named on July 17, will get a $2,500 award and a spot as a recurring host of the new content segment in GSTV’s programming.
“As we add diverse, more impactful levels of content to GSTV, we’re looking for fresh broadcast-ready talent,” GSTV CEO David Leider said in a statement. “We want to give our viewers the power of the vote, to choose the start they’d like to see each time they visit our stations and watch our network.”
GSTV says the new lifestyle programming will be customizable by advertising partners to suit their target audiences.
The company’s channel partners with CBS News for news and entertainment content and with ESPN for sports content, offers current local weather, and can tailor programming to fit geographic location and time of day. The company claims that it reaches captive consumers for four and-a-half to five minutes when they pause during their day to fill their tanks—with no channel-surfing or fast-forwarding through ads, of course.
