The Future of Television: Navigating Streaming Platforms and TV Hosting with Diane Forster

Catharine O'Leary: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to kickstart the conversation and I'm super excited today to have Diane Forster on with us. Diane is a 2022 top TV host and mindset coach and 2021. America's mindset coach, she helps women over 40 reinvent their lives, personally and professionally. Her TV show signature speeches, books, courses and coaching products are produced rapid results for women who you know, who feel stuck, and begin to heal those limiting beliefs that hold them back and really step into their power creating happier, abundant and fulfilled, you know, lives and really step into that her clients call her which I love the client or guys call her the miracle queen. So here you go, folks, Miracle queen with the quiz queen. It's a whole Queen thing. And a dream come true maker. Diane is the founder of I have today TV network, the first and only women's professional development and transformation network for women in their 40s 50s and 60s. Diane, I am so happy to have you on the show. I can't wait to talk about TV hosting as a marketing tool, a Brand Builder and a way to offer your your high ticket services and your high ticket offers and be a client generator. So let's dig in Welcome to kickstart the conversation.

Let's do it. Catharine, I'm so excited to be here. I can't wait to motivate, inspire and educate the audience about this industry. So yeah, let's do it. Yeah, so

Catharine O'Leary: I think one of the and we were just talking briefly about this, I think one of the, the, you know, the first thing that I think of as, oh man TV is like, like, way out of my league. Right? Like, just like, so like, that's just not that's that's for back in the day, when I used to work at Pepsi, we worked on the Super Bowl halftime show, you know, like, that's what I'm thinking of when I think of TV like that kind of really big production, really big budgets, you know, like, a lot of, you know, just a lot of people involved. So maybe you can help us through think through that.

I'd love to. So the old model of the way we think about TV, which is exactly what you're saying, there's a lot of programming there of us thinking, Oh, that's so out of reach. That's so Hollywood that's so expensive to do. And a few things have happened over these last few years, especially these last, like five years. And big shifts happen during the pandemic. And so what's been going on with television is constantly evolving and changing so, so quickly. And it has always been that way since the creation of television. But the big factor is now because of our world of devices that we have, and the ability to get content out in the world in a lot of different ways. The landscape of television has changed. So the old model would be if you're here in the US, you would think oh, it's ABC, NBC and CBS. You know, it's the main stations. And so a lot of people, entrepreneurs, experts think, oh, I want to get on in the media, I want to get, you know, media is going to help my business blow up and right. And so, but what's happened is streaming, which is, you know, called Ott, which means it stands for over the top is a term that came. Remember when TiVo first came out the box, TiVo, and you put it on top of your TV, and you're able to fast forward and pause. But like that was such a huge breakthrough, like OTT stands for is over the top. So it's another way of saying streaming. Well, now all of that is available to us through apps, we just download the apps onto our TV, we download the Netflix, we download the Roku and the Hulu, and a lot of our smart TVs already come with that. Right. So now there is this explosion in the world of opportunity right now, there has never been a better time to have a TV show. Okay? There are so many content providers out there who have platforms already, and they're looking for content. So that's the first thing is the opportunity. The second thing is because of what happened with the lockdown, it completely changed the landscape of television because we were all stuck. And so you saw actors, experts, reporters, anchors, and you know, everybody sitting at their kitchen table, or their dining room table or Ellen DeGeneres sitting on a chair and our genes were present. It created this opportunity of connection a much deeper connection and relatability with the audience, right, so it took away that one dimensional. And now viewers and consumers have come to expect that we've come to expect that with with social media anyway. But now what we want is we want relatable content, we want content that we can be engaged with, we want a different, there's a different feel for it. So now what's happening is the raw the fall of over the air TV, the mainstream channels, the viewership keeps going down, down, down, because the demographic the viewer keeps getting older and older and older, they're still watching it. But we, you know, you know, the younger generation up, you know us through like, say, age 65, that it's a little older than that are used to technology, right? We are in a world of immediate gratification, we can we can binge watch shows, now we can do a lot of things now. And so that industry is on the rise up, OTT is estimated to be $425 billion by next year, which is huge. It's a huge growing category. So now let me get to the third most important point for you out there, if you are a business owner, and expert and author, and you are struggling to get consistency in your business, in terms of your marketing, and your strategies, and your systemization and your operations, what is the opportunity with a TV show? First of all, it is extremely affordable. So let me debunk that to make you think realize you do not have to spend five and six figures on production, it is crazy. The technology has advanced so much that if you have a computer, and you can turn your computer on and push buttons, you have all the technology you need. You don't need expensive equipment, what you need is a decent camera, a microphone, and good lighting. That's what you need. What I teach my my star students and my host is I would prefer you not get the whole studio space setup. Especially if you're just starting out, get your feet wet, get used to delivering a TV show the cadence and the you know, the you know, building it all out, which is all teachable skills, the strategy and structure are all teachable. So what I want to say and give hope to your audience about is right now is a really good time to do it. Because you're creating content anyway. When you create a TV show, and it's done, well, you've just created an asset. And an asset increases in value in time, which means your business will increase in value in time. Because the more episodes you produce, the higher the value is. And there's opportunities to get sponsors, advertisers, in brand partnerships, sell segments of your shows. And the big thing is distribution, making money with distribution. So where social media, you can't do that. You don't own your content. So your social media channel could get hacked, again, denied locked down, you can lose your whole audience there. And the and I know I'm kind of going off here, but let me just finish this point and feel free to jump in. And the experience that the viewer has with your TV show is a long form content relationship where they're building know like and trust. When you're a TV host. You're the authority, you get respect. The media respects you. So the media hires media. So if you're looking to get in those interviews, and you're a TV host, guess who rises to the job and gets picked, because they already think you're a pro and an expert and will deliver really valuable content to their audience. So the benefits, there's so many benefits of doing it that that content gets created once and it can be repurposed into 15 Different Mark sales and marketing tools, amazing one one hour show 150 pieces of content. And you can monetize that and leverage that. So that's why I'm so excited about it, as you can tell. So I'll take a breath right now and let you jump in and ask me anything.

Catharine O'Leary: There's a yeah, there's, there's, there's so much to unpack there. So what I find very interesting in the way that media is used post pandemic Um, because pandemic was, let's face it, it's a turning point for the the entire world. And for many reasons, media has been one of them is that I am now colossally annoyed by TV shows that only come on once a week, right? I loved binge watch, like, I didn't think that I would. But now I'm a binge watcher. And so I will actually take a show for an entire season, and I won't watch it until the season is over. So I can just binge it, because otherwise I'm annoyed, and I'll drop off. But like our media habits have changed drastically. This idea of streaming and TV streaming is, is great. But I also think that you know, what you said about the platforms, and there's there are a lot of platforms out there looking for content. As you know, as we get more and more of these streaming channels that are gaining traction, you know, that's more of your ideal clients that might be out there looking for you. And that you might be able to actually connect with your, you know, your clients and draw them into your community. And I just feel like it's, it's, it's like almost like, a third wheel in your in the spokes of your your marketing, like it's, it's something that's probably a lot of people haven't thought of yet. Yes.

And I love that, that language that you use, because I use it too. So of the spokes of the wheel in the center of the wheel is you, right, you are the brand, you need to be building your brand. And right and so imagine that there's four points, like directions, but anchors like like you go to the mall, right? There's the anchor stores at the mall, right? Well, you're at one of your anchors at the top is your TV show. It's your main source of content production for marketing and sales purposes, right. The other three are your website, your social media, and how you show up on Google. So when someone finds out that you have a show, or they find out any information about you, what do they do, they search you, they look you up on Google, they check out your social media, they'll go to your website, and then they'll see that you're a TV host. And then that will intrigue them, they will want to learn more. You've already elevated yourself to expert status. You know, you're really standing out by by that. And so I love what you said the streaming part of it for me, I know my viewership is eight over 80% of that are 10 foot viewers, meaning they're sitting on their couch, she's sitting on her couch, and she's watching me on her big screen TV, and she's binge watching me. The metrics show me that's exactly what she's doing. She's getting the value, she's enjoying what she's seeing and hearing and learning, right? And then she gets an episode, then she can immediately go and watch another one. No, my show is filmed live. But I have a video demand on demand channel, right? So all the episodes are there, so they can watch me live streaming everywhere, engage as questions, do all of that, but then they can go back and watch that episode or previous episodes. And so it's really conducive to the way we are consuming media. Yeah. Well, and video

Catharine O'Leary: is king, right? Like, I mean, you know, being on TV on video, like, like, you know, whether it's shorts, whether it's Long's get your face out there, like you're just you're just gonna have to figure a video, like you

are. And I you know, host a lot of events. I have women on my, you know, network, I, you know, train in my academy. And so women will come to me men do too, but it's mostly women. And they'll say, but I'm not, you know, I don't look like you Diane on and, you know, they say, you know, meanwhile, I've been doing this for years. Okay, so I'm very comfortable on camera. But I didn't start out that way. It was a sloppy, messy mess, right? And I say you don't have to change anything about yourself. Please show up as authentically you. You don't need to lose weight. You don't need to change anything about yourself. Let the audience fall in love with you just as you are. And let me dispel a myth because everybody thinks well, I want to be in the media because I'm you know, I'm an author now or an expert and I want to go viral, right? That's the big thing. I want to go viral. And let me tell you that if you had 100 loyal customers, buyers, fans, followers, just 100 loyal ones. You would have enough business for the rest of your life. If you Have 1000 loyal fans, followers customers, you'd have enough business for generations, not just you, your family, like we have this idea that we need to be reaching the millions because there's some status there know, the tighter your niche. And the smaller your audience actually is, the better word of mouth over the fence referral business happens to you and for you. And so that's what I want to say Don't, don't feel bad if your email list isn't big right now, or anything like that. nurture the people that you have, and your TV show, is it. It does a lot of things. But it is a long game. But it's the right game, because of all the verticals and ways you can make money with it. The leverage you can. Yeah,

Catharine O'Leary: yeah. And leverage is is key as you're building a list of business, leveraging those relationships, leveraging the people that you've got, you know, you've had on as guests, and and leveraging the audience as other people's audiences as they promote your TV. I mean, it's just like podcasting, in the sense of, you know, doing swaps and being on other people's shows, and so on. So tell me, tell me a little bit more, because I don't, I don't know, how you would transition or how you would offer, like a high ticket offer, like say, I have a high ticket offer that I'm selling. I don't know that I've ever seen, like a TV show go like, you know, have a have a talk show or something like that. And then say, Oh, and by the way, I have, you know, this $10,000 offer this $25,000 offer? So how do you work in? Or do you work in a, you know, an offer like that?

You absolutely do it this is this is part of what the transition has been to. So people are bored in a lot of ways with a lot of the mindless television that's out there. And they actually want to be informed. They want to be inspired, they want to be educated. And so I will say this to you, all of you out there. If you've written a book or have a book in mind, you have a program that you've done, you're a speaker, of course you have life experience and brilliance to share, you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. If you didn't have that. Don't think that you have to keep reinventing the wheel. Okay, a book, when someone reads a book, they forget 95% of what they read the moment after they read it right? When they get to the end of the book, they want more. But what you need to be doing is now talking about this book in your show all the lessons that you've taught all the experiences, this is your content for the show. And so while you're sharing your brilliance with them, you're kind of already pre seeding them, and showing them your brilliance and how amazing you are. Don't hold back, give them your best stuff. You think, oh, I can't do that. I gotta keep it for the high ticket offer. No, they won't forget it. And how we really learn how people are able to start implementing what we're teaching anyway, is through repetition. So you can't say it enough. It's like musicians who tour they do concerts, look at the bands that have been around for 4050 years, they're still singing the same songs because we love them, and we love to hear them. People love to hear what you have to say over and over again, it's always a reminder for them. So don't think that you have to reinvent the wheel. And so when you're sharing, you're like me, if I was talking about TV hosting, which I have done on my show, like I have a huge audience of entrepreneurs and business owners out there. And I talk about the leverage of TV, why I'm doing this. And I will list let like these are the five shifts you need to make. And I will tell them exactly what it is. And then I will direct them to go book a call with me have a strategy session. Let's see if TV hosting is right for you. I don't know that you want to you want to offer your 25k offer on there. I'm not saying don't do it. You can absolutely do it. But you at least want to have a conversation with somebody I feel Oh, absolutely. You know what? You'd want to make sure it's a good fit both ways.

Catharine O'Leary: Well, yeah, you're every shop, you're not gonna sell 25k something without a contract like No, very few people are gonna buy that without a conversation. Absolutely.

They don't tell you. So So yes, every episode. Here's the another brilliant thing about about streaming. It's content marketing. Basically, it is your show. It needs to be structured and formatted right. Let me just say that from the beginning and 99% of the people I see out there are doing it wrong. They are making In the show all about their guest, not about themselves. That's the first thing they're doing wrong. So I teach you how to design a show that of course, you feature the guests on the show, but make no mistake about it, this is my show, this is my platform, this is my expertise. So you are the known trusted authority about it. But you always want to have opportunities for them to continue the relationship with you. And that might be just go to my website and sign up for my newsletter, follow me on social media at the Enforcer official, download this free gift, it's it's on my IG page in my in my link, Tree store, whatever the thing is, drive them to, to continue to follow you. And you want to capture the leads anyway, the goal is to get them from the television, to your email list, the fastest path to do that, where you can continue the one on one conversation. Right.

Catharine O'Leary: And this is where your quiz could come in to play very well. And you know, Hey, guys, if you want to learn more, go to quiz for my biz.com and learn more about quizzes for your business. And you could you could say that very easily on on the back end of my show, that's what I would do yours would be different. But you know, yours might be something along the lines of You know, what, what type of TV show you should you produce? Or what's your TV host style or something along those lines. To get you, you know, to get people into your academy and into the newsletter to learn about the academy and so on. So that's, that's something that I hadn't thought of. So I appreciate that. And, and just talk a little bit about the structure. And you know, I don't want to go too deep into it. But like, are we talking about, like once a week? So you're really doing 52 episodes? Or is this like 12 episodes? And that's a season or like, how, how does that actually work? I'm just trying to think, like, how does that structure for how much time you need to put in to make this actually work?

Yeah, isn't this a beautiful thing you get to decide, you get to decide. Now what we do on our network, our upcoming network is we produce 40 episodes a year, that's our number, that's like three weeks on one week off, or basically new content for you know, first quarter, second quarter, fourth quarter. So we don't have to produce so much over the summer, kind of following the format of regular television. You know, they don't, although it's changed. But traditionally, there would always be reruns in the summer because people aren't consuming television, as much in the warm weather months when they're traveling and their kids are off for school and all of those things. But 40 For us, me, I believe is a good number. Now that can be broken down into three seasons, we could have 39 episodes, where there's three, three seasons of 13 episodes, right? You could do a series, I did a six part series call, it was a special I have today series called change your language, change your life. And it was a six part series and it was all focused on that. So much fun and flexibility with it, you could literally do whatever you want. And when when they're working with me or they come to my three day event, we build out their shows. And so we get we fit, we focus on my star method, which is the essence star strategy. So we identify that middle part of the wheel and come up with that anchor of the TV show. And then we build out the run of show. Well, what is the format? What is the length of it? What are the segments? You know, what's, what is the call to action because it is built in? And then how many do we want to produce? Do we want to do the show at daily? Do we want to do this weekly? Is it a 30 minute show a 60 minute show what our theme months that we could tie into it's so much fun putting it together and when and when we do this and they have the plan. Because you know Catharine, that's the biggest deal. People just don't plan. So they will pick up their phone and say I need to post a you know, an Instagram real. I haven't done anything yet. All this confusion wastes so much time and it's it's literally not moving the needle at all in your business. You're going for likes and follows and comments without any structure when the TV show is totally structured. So every time you're out in the world, your message is consistent. People know what to expect from you. It's so powerful.

Catharine O'Leary: It is and good. Consistency is absolutely the key and I think having that structure is It's so important for anything like it like for regardless TV podcasting, being on social or being on, you know, going to networking events, like whatever that is, you need to be consistently out there. But you also need to be consistently saying the same thing. Because if you know a confused mind won't buy. So if you're confusing people like that's, you're not doing yourself any kind of good. So and

the clearer you are, the more confident you are as a host, I have can't even tell you how many guests have come on my show. And some really big name people who have said to me, this is the best show I've ever been on. This was the best interview I've ever done, because I figured it out, and I know where to take them. Because the thing is, whoever my guest is, must be in alignment with what our brand and businesses, it's got to be a match. If it's not, they're not, they don't get to be a guest on my show, you know, and it makes it so much easier. So when you are so consistent with your brand, and your business and your expertise. And now you're bringing on guests that are in alignment with that, and add to the value of the show. It's all about the audience. It is always about the audience is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make they make the show about themselves, even though it's their show. It's always about the audience. Yeah. Wow. That's,

Catharine O'Leary: that's so that's a lot to think on. Where can people maybe learn a little bit more about, you know, the academy that you have, and about, you know, becoming a, if a TV hosting thing is right for them? How could they get in touch with you?

Well, the first thing, let me give you a gift, it's a free training I have. And it is the five simple shifts to become a TV star hosts to generate five, six, even seven figures in your business, even if you have no experience. And what you'll get when you watch that is an understanding is this for me? Am I dealing with these problems, these situations in my business? Would I rather have this level of consistent, you know, is it for me? So you will know. And then from that training is an invitation to have a breakthrough strategy with me which will go over your whole business in that 30 minute call. It'll be super valuable. And I will recommend yes, no, you know, this is what I would do if I were you and and we take it from there. So the link for that is TV star host.com. TV star host.com. And then if you want to learn more about me just search Diane Forrester official and it's Diane within a Forrester fo r s t e r so think that the number for the word star it's not foster Forrester, I get the all of that. Diane Forrester official. So yeah,

Catharine O'Leary: perfect. And we will have that in the show notes. Of course. Well, thank you Diane for sharing and debunking some of our TV myths. Um, is there anything kind of final that you'd like to leave our audience with?

Yes. Get off the hamster wheel, stop spinning your wheels. The less you do, the more you'll make and not just in money. The more impact you will make, the more the more income you will make, the more sanity you will have in your life and eyes. But my belief as I sit here with you today, that having this TV show is the thing that really moved the needle for me in my business so perfect.

Catharine O'Leary: So everyone, make sure you go to TV star host.com Get that freebie and get connected with Diane to find out if you're maybe the next Oprah who knows. Thanks a lot for listening and for all my kick start the conversation folks out there. Remember, keep the curiosity up and keep asking questions. Thanks for having me.