POP-STARS are pumping extra gas into the TV networks this month.
From Michael Jackson to Jennifer Lopez, television is attracting the music industry’s biggest names.
Since last week, there have been three televised concerts from some of the music industry’s biggest artists, including Michael Jackson (CBS) Garth Brooks (CBS) and Britney Spears (HBO). This week, there’ll be another three, Jennifer Lopez (NBC) another Brooks show on CBS and U2 show from last June airs on VH1 Friday night.
“I think it’s a definite positive for the business that music is coming back to television,” says Mediaweek’s TV industry analyst Marc Berman.
“You always have music shows during sweeps, but the beauty of a special is that it’s not on every week. It’s not like ‘Who Wants to be Millionaire‘ – that started out like a special but was brought back every night of the week and basically had its heat killed off.”
The trick, the experts say, is to find concerts that have something unique about them and then turn the show into an event bigger than just a regular concert.
‘We’re not in this because these artists happen to be the flavor of the month,” says CBS senior vice president Jack Sussman.
And when the formula works, the ratings go through the roof.
Last Tuesday, the pre-taped Jackson concert (it also featured a reunion of the Jackson Five for the first time in 20 years) snared almost 26 million viewers.
“The key is to make it not just a concert.,” Sussman says. “The idea is to create an event with the artist and they have to be able to do something that isn’t seen everywhere else.”
It’s not as easy as it sounds.
CBS was not so lucky the following night. A live Garth Brooks show was seen by only about 8.3 million viewers. The network plans to air another live Brooks show this Wednesday from the deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise in Virginia and another live Brooks event – bill as the final concert of his career – next week.
“What the audience connects with is that if they miss this opportunity they will have missed it for good,” says Sussman. “They won’t be part of the water-cooler conversation next morning.”
NBC is hoping that tommorow night’s JLo concert, will have a similar, unique appeal; she’s never done a full-length concert before and is one of the biggest stars on the planet.
According to NBC’s executive vice president, Jeff Gaspin, there’s only a handful of artists that can successfully draw an audience for a TV concert. “But the ones that do work really well,” he says.
VH1 executive vice president, Fred Graver thinks a lot of the success of this month’s boom-crop of TV concerts could even have something to do with the aftershocks of Sept. 11.
“Performers suddenly have an immediate need to communicate with their audience after the Sept. 11 attacks,” he says.
“Any concert you go to now, there’s something in the air because the audience is asking more from a big event like that,” says Graver, “When Garth Brooks walked out on that stage the other night it was a very immediate event and you couldn’t help but think about what he meant to America and what America meant to him.”
