by David Fribush
RMI has teamed up with five-time Emmy-winning television and movie producer Llewellyn “Lew” Wells, who is creating a broadband TV channel focused on green and sustainability issues. GreenFit plans to launch its “beta” test site (www.greenfit.com) in June 2007, incorporating content provided by RMI.
“There are a lot of sites doing green video,” says Wells. “It seems to me that much of what is being done is in the mold of traditional documentaries and instructional videos. I think if we want to reach more into the mainstream, we have to entertain people more. We need to develop programming that is as fun and interesting as what’s out there about other subjects.”
A producer of the critically acclaimed TV show The West Wing for its first five seasons, Wells is a veteran in the art of combining entertainment and message. “Aaron Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing, used to say that we are not here to force people to eat their spinach," Lew said. "What he meant by that is we could deliver a message, say something that we felt strongly and passionately about saying, but it was our job to also make it entertaining. We hope to bring that same spirit to GreenFit’s programming.”
RMI’s role is to consult with GreenFit in the development of content, and to make sure that content is on-target. With RMI’s expertise in areas from green building to high-tech hybrid cars, there is a lot of great material to be mined.
Several shows currently under development include Xtreme Green, which features extreme athletes who are top competitors in their sports and green in their lives; Kyle and Lyle, an animated web series about two “environmentally challenged” brothers who come to learn about the impacts of their actions when the environment starts to fight back; Get Away Clean, an eco-tourism show; and Chasing Glaciers.
In addition to producing original content, GreenFit is aggregating existing video content, as well as developing an ad network to support other green websites. Lew Wells and his GreenFit partner, Bob Wilson, have collaborated to create the ad network Matter Media with Michael Penwarden and John Gartner, whose backgrounds include both traditional and on-line journalism for Wired, MacWorld, and other publications.
“The sites that are out there, individually, don’t represent a large enough base to interest big advertisers,” Wells explains. “By creating an ad network, we can help everybody.”
Thanks in part to RMI, Fast Company magazine named GreenFit to its 2007 “Fast 50” listing of profit-driven solutions for what ails the planet (see: www.fastcompany.com/magazine/113/open_20-greenfit.html).
If you have any ideas for show content, or have seen some great programming that deserves a bigger audience, feel free to contact David Fribush (dfribush@rmi.org), an RMI fellow who is working with GreenFit.
