What points to a pledge megahit? When Current published this feature, Aug. 4, 1997, "Blue Suede Shoes" was under consideration as a public TV pledge special. By March 1998, it was ready for pledge drives across the country.
By Karen Everhart Bedford
There's a new dance program with the emotional appeal to grab an audience, to become a hit with mainstream middle-aged Americans, and maybe to create the kind of sensation that "Riverdance" did.
The producers won't boast that "Blue Suede Shoes"--now in postproduction--will make the phones ring like the recent Irish dancing hits of public TV pledging, but they must privately hope so.
If it airs on public TV, and if it's scheduled during a pledge drive, the new ballet set to Elvis Presley recordings will be looked to as a contender for the megahit success that propels public TV pledging.
"We want to be really careful that we walk right now. We're not ready to run," said David Oakland, president of New Dance Ventures, a for-profit touring company founded in 1995 by the Cleveland San Jose Ballet with the backing of investors. "Blue Suede Shoes" is the company's first project.
"Please don't compare this to 'Riverdance,' " said Bob Olive, programmer of Cleveland's WVIZ, which is teaming with San Jose's KTEH to present "Blue Suede Shoes on public TV. It's way too early to predict such an achievement.
Such caution about overblowing a program's pledge potential is warranted, judging from interviews with several pledge experts. "The whole thing is a very inexact science," said Jim Scalem, veteran fundraising programmer for PBS.
"Anybody who tells you they can predict pledge shows is wrong," said Alan Foster, v.p. of fundraising and syndicated programs.
"It is always a crap-shoot with these programs," acknowledged Gustavo Sagastume, g.m. of WLRN, Miami, and producer of, among other pledge winners, "Yanni Live at the Acropolis."
The pledge blockbuster is one of the eternal mysteries of public TV. People who have devoted their working lives to raising money on-air can offer theories and war stories about programs that set off a never-ending chorus of telephone bells, yet no one can say definitively what makes a pledge hit.
Ana Lobe in "Blue Suede Shoes." (Photo: Larry Merkle for the Cleveland San Jose Ballet.)
That certain something
Pledge mavens say several elements contribute to making great fundraising specials, and one stands out above the rest: an emotional resonance strong enough to move a viewer off the sofa and to the telephone with a spur-of-the-moment desire to acquire a program-related premium and/or to express support for public TV.
"I think these shows share this indefinable thing," offered Niki Vettel, senior v.p. of program development for the American Program Service. "There's this connection that's made with the audience that moves them to express their appreciation, to pick up the phone."
"There's some element within the program which has passion," she added. "I wish I could think of a better word."
The biggest pledge acts of the 1990s--Three Tenors, Yanni, "Les Miserables" and "Riverdance"--have all been performance-based, noted Jon Abbott, PBS senior v.p. of development. They have "a grandness to them, and energy" and are produced in a way that viewers feel they're in the audience--watching from the tenth row, not the upper gallery.
"It's not just another event," said Sagastume. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime event--the kind of thing that is extraordinary." Sagastume predicted that this element will help him replicate Yanni's 1994 success with a performance special now being edited. The new Yanni concert was recorded earlier this year at the Taj Mahal and in Bejing's Forbidden City. "I will go out on not much of a limb and predict that it will be a blockbuster."
Another important element of top-performing pledge shows is the style in which they're shot, said Sagastume. Pledge producers have to resist Hollywood-style temptations to put "a lot of flash" into a show. They must aim for "extremely good production values, but basic."
Glitzy production techniques or overzealous editing only "removes the audience from the spectacle that they're watching," Sagastume explained. In a pledge show that works, the television screen disappears, allowing viewers to "feel the atmosphere" of the event they're watching.
Sagastume and others warn that attempts to repeat past successes often fail. The Three Sopranos special, a December 1996 program that sought to duplicate the Three Tenors' recipe for cash and acclaim, didn't perform up to expectations, nor did John Tesh's concert at Avalon. "Taking a formula and replicating it doesn't always work," Sagastume said. "Sometimes the performers just don't move people."
Glitter, nostalgia and youth
While producers of "Blue Suede Shoes" won't predict that the televised ballet can carry public TV's audience into a frenzy of pledge euphoria, Cleveland Plain Dealer dance critic Wilma Salisbury sees major potential.
"I think that's the whole idea," she said. "It has so much appeal."
Choreographer Dennis Nahat set the Broadway-scale ballet to master recordings of Presley songs. It tells an upbeat and nostalgic story of three high school boys who come of age in the 1950s, join the Army, go off to Europe and return home. Fantastic costumes and sets, designed by Bob Mackie, give the show a Hollywood glitter.
"It's pretty terrific dancing," Salisbury added. "These are classically trained dancers doing the Twist on point." The master recordings "make you think Elvis is right there," and The King sounds "youthful and strong--it's really quite beautiful singing."
She predicted that "Blue Suede Shoes" will "bring people to the ballet who wouldn't go to see a classical ballet, but they have an interest in music or will go see a show."
"People don't go to Riverdance because they like Irish dancing," she added. "They go because they've seen it on TV and they know it's a good show."
It's worth noting that "Riverdance" didn't debut on public TV as part of a carefully plotted marketing scheme. WTVS, Detroit, acquired rights to the program from Ireland's RTE after General Manager Steve Antoniotti sussed out an unusual demand for Riverdance-related products. A fan of Celtic music, he couldn't find the CD anywhere. He learned from the local Store of Knowledge that the home videos were selling out.
"I don't pretend to be an expert on pledge," Antoniotti acknowledged. "The marketplace was telling me that this was a hit, I didn't need to sit there and think of it."
Public TV viewers went gonzo over "Riverdance" when the show debuted last December, generating an estimated $11.5 million in pledges during last fiscal year. That's about 48 times what it cost to acquire broadcast rights.
Such huge returns on program investments sustain the economics of pledge. Like a Hollywood studio, public TV depends on its mega-hits to make up for less successful pledge shows. "We need a number of smaller, wonderful hits with net returns to the bottom line," said PBS's Abbott, "but we also need to have some big ones to drive the scale of success." Good pledge performers typically deliver at least $20-25 for every dollar invested in the program.
Every March, public TV's biggest drive of the year raises between $45 million and $50 million, Abbott said. To reach those numbers, stations need one or two hit programs during the pledge period. The megahits "have legs"--they keep the phones ringing through several pledge drives.
Successful pledge programs aren't measured only by the dollars they generate for public TV. Another consideration is the donors' motivation. Are they "buying in" to public TV, or just buying a premium?
Programs like "Riverdance" and "Les Miserables" "not only work wonders in recruiting new members and bringing additional contributions from continuing members, they also reaffirm for viewers why they support public TV," said Abbott.
The show will convert its audience to ballet fans, predicts critic Wilma Salisbury. But if it becomes a pledge special, will "Blue Suede Shoes" convert viewers to donors? Above: Ana Lobe and Raymond Rodriguez dance to "Teddy Bear." (Photo: Marty Sohl for the Cleveland San Jose Ballet.)
Web page created Aug. 16, 1997
Revised Feb. 20, 1998
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