| Saying anything is being "taken away" is even more steeped in privilege. | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 03:08 pm EDT 09/26/21 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 03:05 pm EDT 09/26/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Bottom line: You took away my Tonys - finally 02:21 pm EDT 09/26/21 | |
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| No one owes anyone a broadcast of the Tony Awards, and being birthed on Earth doesn't make one entitled to it. The two primary prestigious niche arts programs that CBS continues to broadcast year after year, against all financial sense according to most opinions, are the Kennedy Center Honors and the Tony Awards. After a year-and-a-half delay the Kennedy Center did manage to present a program in May that was only moderately compromised by Covid; though some numbers and dances were pre-taped away from crowds, the majority was filmed in front of audiences, and not only that, but the honorees included household names such as Dick van Dyke, Joan Baez, and Garth Brooks. It went over well, and consequently there will be another broadcast a few months from now, to put them back on their usual annual calendar. By contrast, and I don't know why this has to be endlessly repeated, CBS was clearly in a dilemma about tonight's awards; during a year which saw alarming ratings dropoffs for even the most high-profile awards shows, they were confronted with having to honor a compromised half-season, one that had far fewer stars than usual (due to the season being interrupted just before most of the shows with bigger names opened), AND to celebrate that season 2 and a half years after the earliest show had opened ("Frankie & Johnnie") and almost 2 years after every single one of the plays had closed. Clearly a decision was made that it was not worth it, and (unlike the Kennedy Center Honors) perhaps even damaging to the Tonys brand, to try to hand out those awards, some of which only have 1 or 2 nominees in a category, live on broadcast TV. The situation isn't analogous to something like moving school online in areas where less-advantaged children don't have access to wi-fi; rather, it's trying to find a way to justify continuing to keep the Tonys as part of CBS's ongoing programming, so that they can presumably return to their regularly scheduled awards once theater again has a full, current season to celebrate, whether that be next summer or the following one. And, as part of that decision, the strategy was made to put the niche awards that will be handed out tonight to these mostly lesser-known theater names, on a niche streaming service, so that the network broadcast hours can instead be used to celebrate Broadway as a whole and to advertise its comeback. It's by no means ideal, but it's perfectly understandable and I believe the best plan/solution/compromise under the circumstances. Others can quibble with that, of course. What one shouldn't do, however, in these unprecedentedly challenging times, is to say that moving part of something to a streaming service is "leaving people out" or "limiting access". The movie of Hamilton was originally supposed to come out nationally in movie theaters; when Disney moved it exclusively to their (paid) streaming service, if I recall correctly, not only did no one say it reeked of privilege or somehow disenfranchised millions of would-be viewers – quite the contrary, it was met with universal praise for EXPANDING access to the piece. (And, as others have noted below, the number of people interested in these sorts of shows who don't have broadband is probably easily balanced by those who've already cut the cord of conventional TV entirely and now ONLY watch things streaming – including the numerous younger people who in some cases never had a cord to cut at all, and have consumed nearly all content their entire lives over the Internet). These are strange times we live in, and the advent of something that you rightfully call a game-changer means by definition that the nature of the game is changing; I don't think anyone doubts that a decade from now the number of people watching linear TV will be far surpassed by the number watching things over the Internet, on demand, and/or on streaming services. In a perfect world every minute of the Tonys would have been available to everyone – but that's never been true of anything on television (having a good TV can be seen as steeped in privilege, for one thing, just as much as having a device to stream things on and the Internet that goes with it). So tonight is no exception.... people who want it will be able to find it and watch it (and, in most cases, for free), while some will inevitably be a little bit left out for part of it, just as those who didn't or weren't able to sign up for Disney+ couldn't see Hamilton in summer 2020. I applaud CBS for trying to find an innovative solution in this weird year that they think will work for THEM - not in a crass, craven way, but in a manner that doesn't give them reason in the future to divest themselves of broadcasting the Tonys entirely. Which doesn't mean that they, or anyone else, thinks it's a perfect scenario, let alone that they assume literally everyone will have access to it. |
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| Previous: | re: Bottom line: You took away my Tonys - finally 02:21 pm EDT 09/26/21 |
| Next: | re: Saying anything is being "taken away" is even more steeped in privilege. - ryhog 04:30 pm EDT 09/26/21 |
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