Now About Bennett's Ratings ...
November 26, 2006 1:53 PM
One reason why I am a sweet old critic instead of a mean old network executive -- or a mean young one, which is worse: The Tony Bennett special I raved about in a recent blog was, according to a TVWeek.com news report, an unmitigated disaster in the Nielsens, scoring the lowest number in its time slot in 15 years.
I've often said that, especially when it comes to episodic television, critics' tastes track pretty closely with the public's (using Nielsen as the barometer). There are relatively few shows in the top 20 on a given week that have been trounced, trashed, bashed or blasted by TV critics, and most of the shows in the top 10, with obvious exceptions, have received widespread favorable reviews.
The point is, network execs love to say critics are snobs who want to watch operas every night and are out of touch with the mass audience. Not true.
That said (again), and though I never imagined "Tony Bennett" would be a ratings bonanza, I sure thought it would do better than it did. After all, even if Bennett's principal constituency is baby boomers and older, there were plenty of currently popular singers who joined him for duets on the show. But NBC, in its strange and borderline mystical way, chose to slot the Bennett special opposite one of those awful, but popular, music awards shows on another network. If that's counterprogramming, Mighty Mouse is the bastard son of Mickey and Minnie.
Apparently the Bennett special was all underwritten by sponsor Target stores and by the record company that released the "Duets" album. The special was really a very long music video; virtually every number duplicated a track of the CD. So nobody went broke on this apparent flop, and no hearts should be broken that it didn't do better.
Bennett's heart should be doing just fine, and the next time he's in San Francisco, he can check it out to make sure. I do wish NBC had shown him the respect of a tenable and sensible time slot, but the once-plucky old peacock has bigger problems on its hands (claws?) as the Fourth Quarter marches on and the November sweeps sputter to a stop.
I still say it was a great show.
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Comments (6)
I like him too but Tony Bennett's not Sinatra, whom I would rather not hear ever again. Americans? Quality? I worked in TV 30 years and it took me ten minutes to realize this is a NASCAR, Budweiser nation. When does NBC close?
Posted by schreinervideo | November 28, 2006 11:23 PM
You would rather not hear Sinatra ever again or Bennett? I guess you mean Bennett. He's not my favorite either but he's one of the last remaining practitioners of the great balladeer-crooner tradition. I don't think he invests much emotionally in the songs he sings except for "San Francisco" and the occasional love song, but doesn't he deserve plaudits just for surviving in the increasingly cold and tone-deaf music business?
Posted by Tom Shales | December 3, 2006 11:24 PM
Tom;
Tony Bennet is not my thing or is crooning for that matter, but I give credit to NBC for attempting to program to a demographic other than the 24-45 cash cows.
Posted by Michael | December 4, 2006 12:29 PM
Lest we forget, most of Sinatra's TV specials did poorly in the ratings. His weekly series sponsored by Timex was also a ratings flop. Why would we expect more from Tony Bennett?
Posted by Roy | December 6, 2006 11:02 AM
Tom,
I was looking forward to seeing the Tony Bennett special - but I was shocked to discover that the show aired at 8pm, rather than the more customary 9 or 10pm. (I was so confident that I didn't even bother to set the VCR.) I'm an on-air promo producer at a local affiliate (*not* NBC!) and can only imagine that the network ran with Target and Sony's money and looked at the show as mere "burnoff" or fodder to fill a time period they had no hope of winning anyway. Too bad. There are a substantial number of people my age who appreciate the classic American songs and the people who sing them, but the research people won't listen anyway - especially after this ratings debacle. I've been in TV for nearly 25 years now, but unlike schrienervideo, I still have to be forcibly reminded every so often that we are merely here to toil for the pleasure of "NASCAR Budweiser nation." (One day I'll finally "get the message" and retreat to corporate PR flackdom, or get a teaching degree that'll enable me to tell old war stories ad infinitum about The Days When I Was In The Biz.)
Tony Bennett is indeed the last of his kind - think of people like Sinatra and Torme and latter-day Clooney - who defiantly kept performing Gershwin and Porter and Rodgers long after the pop culture flava-of-the-nanosecond parade had passed by. How in the world can NBC, or any network, reconcile this kind of dogged artistic integrity with bottom-line corporate goals?
Posted by Matt | December 6, 2006 3:34 PM
The TONY BENNETT TV special showed that he is in a class by himself. He has outlasted ALL the other crooners! People want to be critical, but critical about what? The man is a great singer and showman!
Posted by Nick Riggio | March 15, 2007 11:10 PM