Bill Simmons’ HBO show, “Real Time With Bill Simmons” or whatever it was called, was canceled after five months. Nobody was watching. You’d have to think that with the money invested in Simmons, HBO would have been okay with him putting in the work to fix the kinks and make it better, but one or both sides must have simply given up when the going got tough.
However, “nobody was watching” isn’t the real reason the show was canceled.
In a 50-minute interview with The Breakfast Club on New York radio station 105.1, Simmons explained what made it so hard to do his show and have success. Apparently one of the things that prevented his success was his success. No, seriously.
“When you have some success with anything, I think, at a certain point people are like ‘f*ck this guy.’” Simmons said.
Ah, yes. That’s why people stopped seeing Brad Pitt movies in 2003 and why KISS can’t sell out a show anymore. You rarely hear the excuse, “I’m too successful” to explain lack of success at a thing, but here we are.
There’s more.
“I thought the show, in retrospect, I wish it’d been monthly” Simmons said. “I think it’s really hard to do a weekly show and just pop in and out and be like, ‘here’s my take.’ Cause the way the sports cycle goes, with that 24/7. You know, on Monday morning, everyone’s banging podcasts, all those FS1, ESPN shows. Everyone’s got the take on whatever and I don’t know how you just parachute in on Wednesday and have a take that’s greater than everyone’s take.”
Yeah, it’s impossible to have a weekly show that airs on Wednesday and features sports takes. Sure, “Garbage Time With Katie Nolan” is in its third season on FS1, but she wasn’t burdened by previous success. And how would doing it monthly be better for finding fresh takes? And how does listening to a podcast on Monday … you know what, forget it.
I explain my lack of success because of a pre-existing lack of success. Simmons explains his lack of success because of a pre-existing case of too much success. Really, nothing can prevent your success except for no success or too much success. Please draw inspiration from these words.
(Mediaite)
