Death Can Be Incredibly Profitable
I don't mean your own, of course. Although that can be profitable for someone else but I don't THINK it'll do you much good.
I've always had a pretty morbid curiosity with death. I even sold funeral plans for a while. Best part of that gig was working at the mortuary. Something so fascinating working around people who are there, but yet, um, weren't. (Kind of like a certain politician running for office... the name of which I will withhold for fear of alienating one of my loyal visitors.)
Anyhoo... I can't remember how this idea inserted itself into my grey matter, but it's one of my best, I must say. However, it involves some serious planning and prep and a pretty good budget. It would be the perfect marriage of reality tv and the web. I'm telling you, if someone were to implement this, they'd make a fortune (from which they would pay me a good little chunk... right?)
Find a relatively young (more attractive the better) person who has been diagnosed with a terminal disease of some sort and has a certain timeframe in which to live. Document their daily life until the end. I mean the whole thing... cameras stationed everywhere in the house... just like Real World, or whatever. Gotta find someone that has a compelling enough life even without the terminal thing going on. The filming would be all the way to the end and actually capture the moment of death on tape as well.
In exchange for this, you will finance that persons last days so they can enjoy themselves in style...etc.
Sounds really crass so far, huh? Well, it gets even crasser (if that's a word.)
As all these shows have, there would be a big twist at the end. You don't reveal it but you hype it throughout the show's 6 month run, or whatever, as the big surprise finale. On the last show, you air the funeral and the laying into the ground... the whole thing. Then the very last scene you tell the audience that the family and the person has consented to be the very first person in the history of mankind to be filmed decomposing, in real time.
What you do is mount cameras and lights in the coffin with enough batteries to last for 5 years, or whatever. Then, every hour or whatever time frame you decide, you can turn on the lights and the camera remotely (wireless technology will help on this one, obviously) and have a website that streams live video of the person.
Over the 6 months of the filming, the audience will have become quite attached to this person so the media coverage and spectacle of the whole "coffin viewing" would be a worldwide news item. Can you IMAGINE the traffic that website would get. We're talking some SERIOUS ad dollars. It goes without saying that the family would get a large chunk of this, but even so... first year ad revenues alone at the website would be in the multiple millions.
Then, of course, you'd have to up the ante during the next season. I'll let someone else figure out how you can up the ante on this idea.
Okay, I have to say... I know this is REALLY tasteless to a LOT of people. I didn't say it wasn't tasteless, but it's certainly not illegal or even immoral. Death is a natural part of life and if it were me in a terminal state and I knew my family would make a lot of money after I departed, I'd ask, "how many cameras you want in there? Just make sure you get my good, dead side."
Now go get bizzy!