Surgery Under the Lights

Over a month ago I received an invitation from Connecticut’s favorite news channel: News Channel 12, a production of Cablevision of Connecticut. The station has a popular weekly business news show called 12 On the Money, hosted by Rebecca Surran. Their motto: “As Local as Local News Gets.”

Ms. Surran wanted to talk about the energy crisis and in particular why electricity prices are so high in Connecticut. Whether we need more power plants in Southwestern Connecticut. Whether there are enough power lines. Whether Broadwater, the LNG plant proposed for the middle of Long Island Sound, should be built.

I explained to the producer that MXenergy does not have customers in Connecticut. But we do have our headquarters here and like all businesses we certainly have an interest in all of these issues. Last August, after a few days of scalding hot weather, the underground wires in front of our building caught fire and ignited an adjoining natural gas line which blew a hole in the sidewalk and singed the cherry blossoms in front of my window. The explosion shut down most of downtown Stamford for a couple days, forcing us to decamp to our New Jersey office. More importantly, it reminded us that energy is, well, like Cablevision says, “as local as local gets.”

So even though we didn’t have any customers in Connecticut, I agreed to appear on the show. Not being shy about my views (in case you haven’t noticed), I figured I might be able to make an impact on the local utility. Encourage a bit more conservation here. Some prudent alternative energy development there. You get the drift.

But that was a month ago. In the life cycle of MXenergy a month is like the Jurassic Age when the natural gas was actually formed. The interview was scheduled for last Thursday. And on Wednesday, we received our license from the State of Connecticut to sell electricity!

So as I sat down with Ms. Surran I was prepared to talk about power plants and power lines and LNG plants. The producer came over and clipped a microphone to my lapel. We chatted a bit while they checked the mikes and the voice levels. Ms. Surran pointed out which camera would be on me when we spoke. And then…

“Welcome to 12 On the Money, this is Rebecca Surran with me today…” The show had started and before I knew it Ms. Surran wanted to know about MXenergy and when we would start marketing in Connecticut and how we could protect customers from energy volatility by offering them fixed prices like a fixed rate mortgage and how it was easy to enroll with MXenergy by simply signing up for our service by going onto our web site or calling our “800” number and…

Six minutes later the interview was over and I walked over to Pamela Fink who was sitting in a director’s chair in the dark behind Camera 1. “What did I say,” I asked her. “I have no idea what I just said.”

Pamela probably thought I was pulling her leg and ignored the question, saying simply, “The phone lines will be lighting up in the call center. You did great.”

“Seriously,” I persisted, “Did I say anything?”

As I explained to Pamela, I felt like I had just come out of surgery. Being interviewed on TV is an out-of-body experience. I wonder if others have had the same experience. I guess that I am so nervous about saying something silly – this is live television, after all – that I concentrate intensely on the questions and the answers. Then, when it’s over, I have no recollection of what I said. It’s just like when you’ve had general anesthesia: You have a faint recollection of the last thing the doctor said to you before you went under and then you slowly wake up after the sedatives wear off.

Of course, the worst thing about television is that you never know if anybody will watch. This particular interview was going to be broadcast all weekend, at odd times: 8:03, 12:33, 4:03 etc. I forgot all about it until I came to the office on Monday morning and found the following email from a friend:

HEY JEFF,

I WAS CHANNEL SURFING ON SUNDAY MORNING, AROUND 4:30 AM
AND THERE YOU WERE! SO I'M CONVERTING. I GUESS IT'S A GOOD THING, MY OTHER OPTIONS WERE BOGUS REAL ESTATE PROGRAMS, TUMMY FLATTENING MACHINES, MIRACLE SKIN CREAMS, OR 300 KNIVES I DON'T NEED.

WELL, YOU WERE VERY DISTINGUISHED AND I WAS SO PLEASED TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MX.

I'M GOING ON THE WEBSITE NOW.....

At least somebody was watching!