Live 8 weak on ABC
Live 8 was dead on arrival at ABC.
The network’s prime-time highlights special from Saturday’s concerts – featuring such heavy hitters as U2, Paul McCartney, Coldplay, The Who, Green Day and Pink Floyd – averaged a paltry 2.9 million viewers from 8 to 10 that night.
Viewers had plenty of chances to catch the concerts live earlier in the day on MTV, VH1 and America Online. Still, some industry experts were surprised by ABC’s underwhelming performance.
Brad Adgate, head of corporate research for Horizon Media, had predicted the special would draw about 10 million. Why? The lineup of performers would appeal to boomers, who are more likely to be home Saturday night.
Time out for a quick reality check: Saturday is the least-viewed night of the week, and historically viewership on summer holiday weekends is on life support.
“Saturday is just a rotten night,” Adgate concedes. “Networks don’t put anything on Saturday nights, even in the fall.”
Going a step further, Mediaweek TV analyst Marc Berman labels Saturday night and July 4th weekend “a lethal combination.”
How bad were ABC’s numbers? Let us count the ways:
• Live 8 was the least-watched original program on ABC since an episode of the improv show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” last Aug. 8, with 2.1 million viewers.
• It was the least-watched original program on ABC in the 8-to-10 p.m. Saturday slot since the Latino Alma Awards on June 1, 2002.
• It finished a distant fourth in the time slot, almost 2 million viewers behind No. 3 Fox, with “Cops” and “America’s Most Wanted.” It was beaten by repeats of “48 Hours” and “NCIS” on CBS.
“For a Big Three network to get under 3 million viewers is really bad,” Mediaweek’s Berman says.
Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Center for the Study of Popular Television, says that broadcast-TV coverage of such events as Live 8 will go the way of beauty pageants. (Dumped by ABC, Miss America recently went to cable’s CMT.)
“There’s not a broad-enough appeal,” Thompson says. “A good portion of the broadcast audience doesn’t know who or what Coldplay is.”
Even if Woodstock had been broadcast live in 1969, he adds, “It probably would have been beaten by a weekly episode of the ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ or ‘Green Acres.’ “
Experts agree that cable is a perfect fit for Live 8 and similar programs, because it targets niche audiences and can devote numerous hours to live coverage.
Moreover, the impressive response to AOL’s Live 8 streaming “proves that you don’t have to go to a TV set to watch TV anymore,” Berman says. “It’s a testimonial that there’s some shifting going on.”
Live 8 wasn’t all bad news for ABC, however.
The special was a “time buy,” which means the concert producers had already sold the advertising before the show aired. They “rented” the airtime from ABC – a win-win for the network.