Talking with Tammie

Some peo­ple are nat­ural ath­letes. Some are gifted in the arts. Those gifted with a mind for num­bers and sys­tems con­tribute in engi­neer­ing and sci­ences and more. It’s these nat­ural gifts that allow each of us the oppor­tu­nity to shine in our own way, to make the world that much bet­ter for those still to come.Tammie Reed can talk.“Everyone has a gift,” says Tam­mie. “Mine is run­ning my mouth.“Tak­ing it on the RoadIn June 2005, Tam­mie Reed grad­u­ated from Uni­ver­sity of Phoenix with her Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Busi­ness Man­age­ment. She’d just been down­sized a third time and was grow­ing frus­trated with the eco­nomic cli­mate dic­tat­ing her pro­fes­sional suc­cess. “You don’t have to depend on the state of the econ­omy. You can’t rely on cor­po­rate Amer­ica.” What her expe­ri­ence and edu­ca­tion taught her, she says, “You can do it on your own.“She moved her fam­ily to Atlanta and began chip­ping away at her dreams of broad­cast suc­cess. “It’s not an easy indus­try to break into,” says Lloyd Wright, 30-year broad­cast vet­eran. “The news mar­kets are shrink­ing and under-funded under cor­po­rate own­er­ship. There’s sim­ply less money to throw at tal­ent that may end up the next Oprah. There’s too much risk to local outlets.“Tammie interned as a pub­li­cist on “Charlie’s Talk” for two years before learn­ing that les­son the hard way. The show was can­celled leav­ing her once again at a cross­road. “If I learned any­thing from that expe­ri­ence, it’s that pro­duc­ing a show is not that hard.” So she picked up a cam­era and started shoot­ing.New Media Econ­omyThe nascent new media mar­ket­place has shown enor­mous promise over the last decade. As more and more tra­di­tional broad­cast out­lets are forced to reeval­u­ate their mod­els in the face of shrink­ing view­er­ship, indipen­dent pro­duc­ers are in a posi­tion to cap­i­tal­ize. In fact, in a move that stunned much of the media com­mu­nity last month, ClearChan­nel sta­tion KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa, Cal­i­for­nia turned their model on its ear: they layed off most of the station’s news gath­er­ing staff and plan to ask the local com­mu­nity to pro­vide con­tent for the sta­tion. In a recent inter­view with The San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle, Clear Chan­nel exec­u­tive Steve Spendlove says it’s a sea change, but has promise. Promise, espe­cially given the sta­tion has been strug­gling to stay afloat — and to stay rel­e­vant — in the mar­ket for many years.It’s this cli­mate that makes for the per­fect oppor­tu­nity for indus­tri­ous inde­pen­dents to make a dif­fer­ence. Leo Laporte, one of inde­pen­dent media’s pio­neers, says that major media has done it to them­selves. “Main­stream media turned into a machine for reach­ing their hands in peo­ples’ pock­ets. That’s why most peo­ple don’t like main­stream media — its very clear that’s what they’re doing.” But what Laport and oth­ers have cre­ated is not just a replace­ment for tra­di­tional media. “This isn’t radio. This isn’t TV. To the degree that we can dis­tance our­selves from old media is the degree to which we’ll be suc­cess­ful.“Visu­al­iza­tionTam­mie Reed says she’s the per­fect entre­pre­neur. “It’s not that I’m a bad employee. But I always end up telling other peo­ple what to do.” Boss­ing peo­ple around may be one thing, but putting the sys­tem in place to achieve goals is some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­ent. And there, Tam­mie is a hard­ened achiever. For her, it’s all about visu­al­iz­ing success.“I put a Vision Board on the wall in my office.” It’s a bul­letin board, she says, cov­ered with clip­pings from mag­a­zines and pic­tures of the peo­ple she wants to inter­view. “It’s cov­ered with lit­tle heads.“Not for long, though. Tammie’s suc­cess rate so far is one for the majors. Her lat­est batch of shows includes inter­views with Ludacris, Usher, Laura Turner, and Michael Knight from the show “Project Run­way.” Bill Ran­cic, entre­pre­neur and win­ner of “The Appren­tice”, liked Tam­mie so much he invited her to his wed­ding. “I don’t know how I’m doing it. But I’m just doing it.“She’s landed the show on local sta­tions in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and Alabama. Los Ange­les and Miami are com­ing soon, as well as her home state of Ohio.What’s com­ing out of this show for Tam­mie Reed, and her hands on expe­ri­ence with indie media pro­duc­tion, is a drive to give some­thing back. This spring, she’s launch­ing a sec­ond show, “Talk­ing with Kids”. For her, it’s an oppor­tu­nity to give her own kids a chance to explore busi­ness and media as she has done. “It’s such an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence. Now, I have a chance to show oth­ers how to start their own busi­ness, to get started and give back to the community.”“In ten years, I want to be national,” she says of her next move. “How it’s going to work, I don’t know. That’s not the prob­lem.” It’s an expen­sive process to pro­duce a tele­vi­sion show on the rough. But Tam­mie Reed has learned that her net­work is more pow­er­ful than she’d ever imag­ined, and her instinct is rarely wrong. “I don’t care if I’m home­less. I’m doing this show.“__________________________________Find Tam­mie Reed online at www.talkingwithtami.com. Look for the show in your local area com­ing soon.