Myspace and Reality Tv Mark Burnett enter Politics -Darwin Candidate

MySpace and Mark Burnett are uniting to launch INDEPENDENT, a groundbreaking political reality show. Both enterprises aims to find the nation’s next great politician through an online, offline, on-air multimedia campaign expected to launch in early 2008.
As an interactive television series, INDEPENDENT will engage and empower young Americans to participate in the political process at an unprecedented level. This reality-based competition will enable America to select a candidate whom they feel will best reflect the voice of young Americans.

The show will combine reality-competition television with the Internet and help reshape the face of American politics, including the next Presidential election.

Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of MySpace believes INDEPENDENT represents a giant leap in the re-democratization of American politics.

“Through this new network television series and the partnership of MySpace, we’re going to discover in a big way, what America really thinks, and bring to light the issues that are closest to those who now finally have a chance to be heard,” said Mark Burnett in a press release.

He continued: “The largest number of eyeballs able to be reached at any one time is still network television. But clearly, the world’s largest social networking community is found on MySpace and this huge, powerful group of young Americans will definitely generate strong opinions, and unquestionable influence. What will the INDEPENDENT community say? What will they decide? We’re going to hear in a big way, what America really thinks!”

Thanks to MySpace’s powerful social networking tools, the candidates will have deep real-time access to their viewers/constituents in a manner that is unprecedented in reality programming.

People willing to participate in the show will submit themselves via MySpace Video. Each chosen candidate will create MySpace Impact profiles to serve as their campaign platform.

The contestants on INDEPENDENT will interact with supporters, protestors, activists, and everyone in-between each day. Through an interactive town-hall environment the contestants will receive feedback from the viewing public both within the network television series and online through the MySpace community.

The winner will not be able keep the award of one million dollars and what he or she does with the prize money is subject to a list of options, all political in nature. The choice the winner makes will be greatly influenced by the MySpace community and the viewers of the network television show.

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