As lovers of high quality drama, awkward scenes involving gratuitous product placement and those who are famous for no apparent reason, StopPress is delighted to hear The Ridges are coming to New Zealand TV. And, to the joy of MediaWorks, which, judging by the promo clip below, is revelling in all the negative publicity the reality show has already generated, it’s even become the subject of other advertisers’ campaigns. 
In the same week Charlotte Dawson was hospitalised after harsh comments from Twitter trolls, the Ridges will no doubt be receiving even more social media flak than they already have as well. But, judging by this story, they’ve got pretty thick skin.
According to the Herald, preview episodes of the show were ‘laugh out loud funny’, and TV3 publicist Rachel Lorimer says they’re not fazed by the negative publicity or a nzherald.co.nz poll of 2500 people that showed 68 percent claimed there was no way they would watch the show.
“Anyone who goes to the trouble of taking part in an online poll is interested,” she says. ”We saw exactly the same thing with The GC. I’m confident The Ridges will launch strongly, and then we’ll see how it goes from there.”
Unlike The GC, there’s no scope for ‘culture’ here, so it has received no NZOA funding.
“TV3 is paying for it and making it in house. We have employed Natalie Malcon, who produced The Secret Lives of Dancers series that went behind the scenes at the Royal NZ Ballet for Eyeworks, to produce and John McDonald, our head of local production, is the executive producer,” says Lorimer. “The promos and marketing campaign were also done in house.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ykf0-lIhq8
And here’s a slightly modified version from Dan News.
