Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, American Pickers, Canadian Pickers, Auction Hunters. It appears the viewing public's appetite for reality TV shows based on jobbers and professional hagglers is insatiable.
There is something about bargains and bartering that appeals to viewers' inner garage saler, which might explain why Vancouver's Anaid Productions has a minor hit on its hands with its own series, The Liquidator.
Based on the exploits of Burnaby "liquidation king" Jeff Schwarz, The Liquidator was recently nominated for three Leo Awards and was renewed for a third season by OLN, the reality TV channel owned by Rogers Communications (TSX:RCI).
The Liquidator is Anaid's 10th TV production. Other series it has produced include The Rig, focused on the wildcatters who work Alberta's oil rigs, and Taking It Off, which documents the efforts of overweight Canadians trying to shed pounds.
With a full-time staff of 15 to 20 people, Anaid is one of Vancouver's smaller TV production studios. The company shoots one or two series a year. By contrast, Paperny Entertainment has seven series in production, including the popular Eat Street (Food Network) and Yukon Gold (History Channel).
Margaret Mardirossian, Anaid's founder and executive producer, originally started out in theatre in Montreal "and soon realized there was no money to be made in theatre."
She switched to TV and film and ended up in Edmonton, where Anaid still has a studio.
"Five years ago, it was very clear to me that in Alberta, there was a real lack of creative resources," she said. "Vancouver's got a great pool of talent, but also a very busy centre with respect to the television community, so five years ago we moved to Vancouver."
Not only is there a huge demand for reality TV shows, they also provide a good return. Scripted TV can cost between $1.5 million and $2 million per episode. A reality TV show can be shot for a tenth of the cost.
"When you're financing a scripted [series], there's a lot of equity investment in it, so a lot of that equity money has to be recouped," Mardirossian said. "In the unscripted genre, because the budgets are much less, you're able to finance it without much equity."
A typical crew for an Anaid production is four to eight people, and the stars don't get paid much. While some reality TV shows are scripted, The Liquidator is unscripted.
"The day they tell me I've got to start scripting it is the day that I say I've had enough – it's not happening," Schwarz said.
The film crews spend four days a week following Schwarz around, "capturing things on the fly," 45 weeks of the year.
"Sometimes we have to wait a long time to get the payoff," Mardirossian said. "Meanwhile, we've got delivery deadlines and air dates, so our story department is tasked with the insurmountable. They have to piece together all those transactions into something that's cohesive thematically."
Anaid is currently casting for a new series that focuses on mixed marriages, in development with a national broadcaster.
Vancouver reality TV producers
Force Four Entertainment – Border Security (National Geographic Channel)
Paperny Films – Eat St. (Food Network)
Great Pacific – Highway Thru Hell (Discovery Channel)
Omnifilm Entertainment – Ice Pilots NWT (History Channel), Pyros (Discovery)
Anaid Productions – The Liquidator (OLN)
TV exposure slashes advertising costs
Getting the word out about his liquidation business in Burnaby used to cost Direct Liquidation owner Jeff Schwarz a small fortune in advertising. But now that he has his own reality TV show on OLN, his advertising budget is a fraction of what it was.
"Now that they've got the show in repeats, we can definitely see a fall," said the star of The Liquidator.
"Last year, we spent in the six figures in advertising. We spent, maybe in the first quarter, literally less than $1,000, where we were doing $1,500 to $2,500 a week [before]."
Schwarz didn't set out to have his own reality TV show. He was introduced to Mardirossian through a mutual acquaintance, who had met Schwarz in his Burnaby liquidation warehouse and thought he was the kind of character who belonged on TV.
Anaid shot some footage of Schwarz at work, pitched it to OLN and within a couple of months Schwarz had his own reality TV show.
"Most people think that they get on these reality shows and they become like the Kardashians – multimillionaires," Mardirossian said.
"But the Kardashians aren't making a whole lot of money off the reality show – it's just the ancillary things."
For Schwarz, the value in having a realty TV show is the public profile it gives his business.
"In a sense, it's a huge infomercial," Schwarz said.
The third season premier of The Liquidator began airing on OLN on June 27.
