History of Tony performances question

Bump

Over the years as commercial minutes increased and CBS began demaning the telecast end on time, trims had to be made.

Years ago (the 1980s) the Tony telecast frequently went over by a half hour or more and it was crammed with entertainment including musical tributes to George abbott (on his 100th birthday) and legends who passed (Robert Preston, Michael Bennett.)

And yes, there were longer sequences from each show. Some shows got more time than others: In 1982 NINE was relegated to 4 minutes of Be Italian while DREAMGIRLS goty almost 9 minutes to do the entire First Act finale.

By 1990 they were stricter: 3-5 minutes per show.

It's tough because I do believe the numbers are what make the show interesting to non theatre fans and also what attract the core theatre lovers.

I would love to see them pre-tape all the winners speeches in advance and run a digest version of the winner - 45 seconds max.

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Though that would serve us well it would reach a far smaller audience (and many PBS stations would opt out of showing it. Look how many stations did not carry the Drama Desk Awards.)

The show producers obviously look to the Tonys as a national TV ad for their shows and have started treating it as such with slicker medley-styled presentations often shot MTV style but this doesn't really show viewers what the show is really like.

PBS might be an answer if the show is packaged to air the month between nominees and awards, include some behind-the-scenes features (as were done on PBS's Launching the Tonys programs) plus some generous excerpts from the new plays and musicals as well as long running audience favourites. Maybe even a people's choice award so people can vote for their favourite show each season of all the ones running. Not that those results would carry much weight but it would at least make the program more interesting.

As for the CBS ratings, I just got VARIETY and the overall ratings for early June are abysmal. Sunday June 3 (a week BEFORE the Tony awards) CBS won the night with a rating of (get this) 1.7 and a 5 share. (!!!) TV ratings are way down everywhere, and the Tonys are down with them.

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