You can’t stop the beat

Opinion

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This article was published 01/12/2016 (3211 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With the early-December arrival of Hairspray Live! to NBC, it’s pretty safe to say musicals, particularly of the live variety, on prime-time network television have officially become “a thing.”

Hairspray Live!, which airs Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. on NBC and City, marks the Peacock Network’s fourth foray into the live-musical format in recent years, with previous airings of The Sound of Music, Peter Pan and The Wiz having turned in favourable ratings over the last couple of years. Fox has also jumped aggressively into the musical arena, first with Grease and more recently with The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which was not a live presentation).

ABC has also signalled its intention to join the fray, scheduling an as-yet-unidentified live event a network executive said will be in keeping with the network’s Disney ownership.

https://youtu.be/aisbgm48Bx0

So why has the musical — a genre mostly associated with live theatres, decades-past movies and a decidedly older-skewing audience demographic — suddenly become a go-to form of event programming for major TV networks?

Actually, there are a number of reasons:

1. Nostalgia, pure and simple

TV versions of popular musicals harken back to a simpler time when the network roster was small, the ratings were huge and families gathered around the television set to share the experience of watching musical-comedy variety shows that were among the medium’s most popular offerings. It’s been a long time since Ed Sullivan and Carol Burnett ruled the airwaves, but it’s a clear return to good, clean family fun.

2. The Glee Factor

NBC gets credit for being first, but the truth of the matter is none of these big-stage-to-small-screen adaptations would ever have been considered if Fox hadn’t first created an appetite for the genre by introducing Glee to viewers and making a new generation believe song-and-dance routines could be part of the TV-watching experience. NBC followed Fox by giving the short-lived Smash a shot, and then wisely turned its attention to the Broadway-style version of prime-time music.

3. The no-zap appeal

In the age of PVRs and zapped-through commercials, broadcasters are eager to latch onto anything that will keep viewers in their seats and attentive to the screen while those high-priced ads are displayed. And aside from live sporting events, these big-event musicals are the only prime-time offerings that create such stay-put sales-pitch opportunities.

4. The communal viewing experience

TV viewing — or, shall we say, content consumption — has become an increasingly solitary endeavour, as individual family members abandon the traditional prime-time schedule and customize their viewing experiences by watching what they want, when they want, on whatever device or screen best suits the moment. Live, big-event musicals have recreated the family-viewing experience and reintroduced “appointment TV” into the pop-culture conversation.

5. Social-media buzz

Viewers involved in that shared live-TV experience don’t just want to watch, they want to interact with others who are seeing the same thing at the same time. NBC’s recent broadcast of The Wiz Live! spawned 2.2 million engagements over social media platforms, including 1.6 million tweets.

“Live television musicals are the ultimate live event,” Cait Hood, Twitter’s head of broadcast partnerships, told Variety recently. “We grew up loving these storylines, having these favourite, iconic moments and memories around the shows that we can all relate to. I think that nostalgia compels people to really reference the throwbacks and engage with that live audience. And I think that’s why the live musicals have become so popular, specifically on Twitter.”

5. The car-crash question

It’s live TV, so there’s always the possibility that something could go catastrophically wrong. That’s forever been one of the uneasy appeals of live TV, and in the age of social media and so-called “hate watching,” the worst moments can make for the best and most active social media conversation.

6. Star-power possibilities

Live musicals offer a unique set of opportunities to actors who might otherwise be disinclined to consider television projects — they’re one-time events, so they don’t require the longer-term commitment required by TV-series gigs, and they attract huge audiences, meaning performers who usually strut their stuff in front of a few thousand Broadway theatregoers can showcase their talents for multiple millions of TV viewers with a single show. If you’re a triple-threat star looking to extend your brand, a live TV musical is the perfect venue.

 

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @BradOswald