I have been watching lots of gold shows to hook in the gold fever before I go out for mining for the summer in a couple days and I was actually streaming the show (Bering Sea Gold) in another browser tab when I read the release. So I had this weird moment where I was like, wait what? Isn't that the name of that diver-less dredge? Then I saw Mr. Schimschat's name and the rest of the text and wondered, is this real?
The shares paid are worth about $60k with good upside. Mr. Schimschat has stated his dredge cost $600k to build and he mined 172.00 oz ($230k) in his first season with very little time on the water. This would lead me to believe Mexus owns around 5-10% although the exact percentage is not stated. He's a quick learner and a good experienced operator. DP says Paul and Paul JR have been designing and prepping improvements to make the dredge more efficient. From the sounds of it as well it looks like Paul JR will join Mr. Schimschat's crew and put that Thompson tinkering on the screen. This should allow them to compete for the top slot on the show, and have a very good chance statistically to win.
Bering Sea Gold gets about 3-4 million viewers on broadcast night and counting reruns, foreign viewership (Germany etc), and streaming (the big one nowadays, who watches TV?) there is probably around 20 million viewers per episode, or more over time. The next season will start in December or January and is being filmed as we speak. Exposure on this show is a clever long term play. I actually wondered to myself why some of these operations do not have corporate sponsors, since it makes so much sense for both parties. Mr. Schimschat's dredge is the largest in the fleet and the rivalry with the other similar operation takes up a lot of screen time and is definitely something DISC would encourage. Adding it all up this very easily could add up to twenty million hours of direct and indirect advertising or more. If Mexus' logo is next to the Gold Grabber's signage even that alone gets shown many, many times and over a season probably adds up to a minute or more x twenty million viewers, repeated like a commercial. Characters on the show are given time to explain their family histories etc and Paul's family experience means this has a 95% chance of being profiled (IMO) compared to some of the irrelevant and oddball characters and others...
In the end I think it amounts to a lot of inexpensive exposure (potentially free or even profitable marketing) and gives them an opportunity for the Thompsons to show off some of their ingenuity for the world to see.
