tune up to reach young viewers

8/10/2019 Tune Up to Reach Young Viewers

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n increasingly vital part of produc-

ing any successful show. Thats true

not onlybecause of the present glut

of original programming, but also

because music technology keeps

dramatically evolving. Facebook

ndApple, for example, are prepar-

ing to enter the song-recognition

rena dominated by apps from Shazam and

SoundHound, with all players basing their

strategies on the valueof n the overall mix.

Even he unlikeliest seriessay, lot-

heavy early-American spy drama with a sin-

cere attachment to historical ac-

curacymake determined efforts

to incorporate the downloadable

ear candy that draws young view-

ers, fosters audience involvement

and cements brand identity.

Every cable show, every

network show, wants to have a

oung audience, says Barry Josephson, pro-

ducer of AMCs Revolutionary ar drama

Turn. So for us, to use artists who [young]

eople know, potentially theyll be interested

n our show from that angle.

The lengths to which Josephson nd his

creative team go to satisfy both marketing de-

mands and the series sense of historical integ-

rity suggest the importance todays TV produc-

ers place on conveniently downloadable tunes.

The process begins with music supervisor

Thomas Golubic, who compiles lists of actual

period songs. The production team, including

Josephson and showrunner Craig Silverstein,

then brainstorms about possible contempo-

rary musicians who could re-interpret the old

tunes with a modern edge.

With music producer Tony Berg, the team

stocks each Turn episode with olished,

1 4 B R O A D C A S T I N G & C A B L E J U N E 1 6 , 20 1 4 B R O A D C A S T I N G C A B L E . C O M

SpecialReport: Music for Television

PEPPERING SOUNDTRACKS with licensed songs and contempo-

rary artists is no longer the province of auteur TV showrunnersit is

Showrunners Tune UpTo Reach Young ViewersCurrent glut of quality programming makes music an

increasingly vital, clutter-busting tool for producersBy Greg [email protected]|@GregEvans5

A vances inmusic

technologyan the need

o buil v ewerloyaltyring music center stage.

WHY THIS

MATTERS

MarkLevine/ABC;Antony

Platt/AMC;CliffLipson/Showtime;HBO


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B R O A D C A S T I N G C A B L E . C O M J U N E 16 , 2 0 14 B R O A D C A S T I N G & C A B L E 1 5

Americana-tinged traditional tunes like Tur-

pin Hero, Spanish Ladies and Bonny

Portmore, as interpreted by such indie artists

s, respectively, Jake Bugg, Sarah Blasko and

aura Marling & Jonathan Wilson. (During the

debut season, the shows sole original song

was its theme, Hush, by The Civil Wars JoyWilliams and The Nationals Matt Berninger.)

Measure for Measure

Both Josephson and Silverstein insist that

marketing and promotional considerations are

of secondary importance to the artistic merits

of the songs and the dramatic ambience they

create, and for good reason. While the music/

TV cross-pollinations have clear benefits to the

music side of the equation (increased artist visi-

bility and download purchases, for starters), the

upside for theTV shows is harder to quantify.

At their best, song selections and theme

music galvanize an audience, says Russell

Ziecker, executive VP for television music

at Lionsgate Music and Publishing, who has

supervised music for shows including Mad

Men,Weeds,BossandNashville.

In the case of ABCs Nashville, galva-

nize might be an understatement. The soapy

drama, set in the country music capital and

loaded with musical performances by cast

members, has spawned a concert tour, four

high-selling soundtrack CDs (more than

600,000 copies sold) and more than 3 million

individual songs downloaded from iTunes,

according to Lionsgate andABC.

Nielsen ratings, however, sound a less

resonant note. Nashville was on the verge

of cancellation before getting a third-season

pickup last month, thanks n part to a sweet-

ened tax incentive package from the state of

Tennessee.Turn, eyed as a potential succes-

or toBreaking Bad andMad Men, scored

2.1 million live-plus-same-day viewers in its

premiere but has since declined to average

between 1 and 1.4 million. AMC has not in-

dicated its stance on bringing the show back.

Shows Thrive on Live

Shazam, the leading music recognition

pp with more than 420 million users in 200

countries, touts what company executives

ay s an increasingly significant contribution

o both TV viewership and engagement. The

tools come into play n particular with music-

heavy programming like the Grammy and

Country Music Awards broadcasts.

According to figures released by CEO Rich

Riley, Shazam was used more than 54,000

times during Januarys Grammy Awards,

as TV viewers used the app to identify and

download purchasable songs from iTunes and

Amazon. Prior to the telecast, Shazams news

feed reminded more than 10 million iOS and

Android users to tune n.

With numbers like that, theres little won-

der that Facebook wants n on the act on. ast

month, the company announced plans for a

new feature that allows iOS and Android users

to identify sn ppets of and mus c recorded

v a smartphone microphones. The sn ppets are

then matchedto a Facebookdatabase and iden-

tified; with the users perm ss on, the song or

show is then tagged on the users feed.

Apple, meanwhile, has confirmed that its

iOS8, expected by September, will include

hands-free, Siri-operated Shazam song rec-

ognition and iTunes purchase.

or musicians and their record labels, the

visibility offered by T shows, along with the

possibility of a boost n digital downloads,

can be irresistible, enough so even to sweeten

their deals with TV producers and networks.

Turn showrunner Silverstein says that Uni-

versal Music Group will release a soundtrack

of all the series songs (a few are currently

available as individual downloads on iTunes

via AMCsTurnwebsite).

As part of the deal, Universal provided an

undisclosed sum of money to offset the artist

and production costs that the urn produc-

Far left) Music is used to help establish the many moods

f ad Menstar Jon Hamm; Universal is planning a

oundtrack promoting the new AMC dramaTurn.

Dean Martins album Live at the Sands Hotel

sent season 4 of The Sopranosoffstage swinging.

Every cable show, everynetwork show, wants tohave a young audience.So for us, to use artistswho [young] peopleknow, potentially theyllbe interested in ourshow from that angle.

Barry Josephson,

producer of AMCs Turn


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tion budget might not have otherwise al-

lowed, Silverstein says.

Creating Sonic Signatures

Terence Winter, executive producer and

writer of HBOsBoardwalk Empire(which

won a 2012 Grammy Award for its firstoundtrack C ), says music is a core element

of the show. Pairing 20s tunes with contem-

porary artistsPatti Smith, David Johan-

en and Elvis Costello, among many oth-

ersprovides both publicity hooks and the

chance to expose the artists fans to a little-

known era of American musical history.

Winters own history, as producer and writ-

er of the music-heavy The Sopranos, prepared

im well to orchestrateBoardwalks musical

approach. He says Sopranos creator David

Chase always gave himself opportunities to

use music, often by making certain that, say,

a radio or stereo was included in a setting sothat a song could be added to a scene later,

when inspiration struck. (Dean Martins ve

t the Sands Hotel album, for example, was

used to devastating comic effect at the end of

Whitecaps, the fourth-season finale.)

Winters next project is an as-

yet-untitled HBO drama series

created by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger.The series stars Boardwalks Bobby Can-

navale as a New York City music executive in

1973, the dawn of punk, disco and hip-hop.

Shooting on the pilot begins this month, and

Winter says the soundtrack will include mu-

sic written for the series as well as rec-

ognizable recordings from the era of

Led Zeppelin and the ew York olls.

Winter insists, though, that song

choices for his series are made to

enhance story, not for market demo-

graphics (a luxury, arguably, that pay-TV outlets such as HBO can afford).

Still, a well-chosen col-

lection of licensed songs

inevitably contributes

to a shows brand iden-

tification. Ann K ine, a

music supervisor whose

career stretches from

BCs to Showtimes

Shameless, says the lat-

ter shows use of brash

American indie bands

like Wild Yaks, Fidlar and

The Moog captures the tone of the series. talso trumpets the shows appeal to a youth-

ul, engaged viewership.

The bands fans and our fans create a

community, line says. feels like youre

part of something, together.

SpecialReport: Music for Television

Boardwalk Empires(above) first sound-

track won a Grammy; Shameless features

indie bands favored by young viewers.

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C o p y r i g h t o f B r o a d c a s t i n g & C a b l e i s t h e p r o p e r t y o f N e w B a y M e d i a , L L C a n d i t s c o n t e n t

m a y n o t b e c o p i e d o r e m a i l e d t o m u l t i p l e s i t e s o r p o s t e d t o a l i s t s e r v w i t h o u t t h e c o p y r i g h t

h o l d e r ' s e x p r e s s w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . H o w e v e r , u s e r s m a y p r i n t , d o w n l o a d , o r e m a i l a r t i c l e s f o r

i n d i v i d u a l u s e .

tune up to reach young viewers

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