Chris Hansen Wants You to Fund New ‘To Catch a Predator’
Better have a seat for this one: Former Dateline reporter Chris Hansen is launching a Kickstarter campaign in hopes of reviving his infamous series To Catch a Predator as a new series titled, Hansen vs. Predator, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The new Kickstarter campaign goes live Wednesday, April 15th, and Hansen hopes to raise around $400,000. The plan is to first produce the show as a web series before trying to sell it to a television network.
“There is a pent-up demand from viewers for another investigation,” Hansen said. “And from a technology standpoint, the landscape has really changed since we did the last one.”
To Catch a Predator first aired in 2004 and found Hansen and the watchdog group Perverted-Justice setting up online sting operations to lure men prowling the Internet for underage partners. The men would be invited to a house, where Hansen would confront them about their intentions — often using the unofficial catchphrase, “Have a seat” — before sending them on their way. Upon leaving the house, they would be arrested by local police.
Hansen vs. Predator will ostensibly operate in the same way, though as Hansen noted: “When we did it before, there were chat rooms on AOL and Yahoo. Now there are 22 ways to communicate online.”
The forthcoming Kickstarter campaign will offer donors a number of incentives, from T-shirts and coffee mugs boasting the Hansen vs. Predator logo to a private screening of the show with host and crew. For $150, Hansen will even provide an outgoing voice mail message.
To Catch a Predator went off the air in December 2007, and Hansen left NBC in 2013. Still, the show remained a rerun staple and NBC eventually sold it to broadcasters around the world for over $10 million. Despite its success, though, To Catch a Predator garnered plenty of controversy. Many argued that Hansen and Perverted-Justice’s scheme was tantamount to entrapment, while one alleged predator killed himself after being exposed on the show in 2007.