I don’t want to sound mean and dispirited, but the usual claims are being made about Live 8 being the most watched broadcast in history.
Well no.
In the US, it’s network airing is on ABC – a two hour highlights package on Saturday evening. No wall to wall coverage there on a major TV channel. That’s left to VH1 and MTV.
There are roughly 6.5 billion on this planet. I don’t doubt that the various outlets will mean that 5.5 billion of them could watch. But that’s not really the same thing.
I could watch Big Brother tonight on TV. But I won’t.
This evening’s Channel 4 News saw Jon Snow in Kampala, and as he showed, despite the free satellite feed of the concerts coming from South Africa, technicians were barely able to get the footage through at Uganda Television. And when it was up, only one in ten families has access to a television, and few had even heard of G8 never mind Live 8, so they weren’t watching. In any event, aside from the South African gig, it would surely be the marginalised Eden Project African music gig they’d prefer despite taking place in front of a relatively small audience.
That’s not to say that it’s not an incredibly worthwhile event, but somehow there are a few things not quite right. I think the BBC are really finding that difficulty in their coverage today. They’re showing the artists and then cutting away from the specially made videos (despite Coldplay’s Chris Martin urging them not to from the stage).
That’s because, like it or not, it’s a political statement. One that nobody could possibly have a problem with, but a political statement nonetheless. BBC reporter Stuart Hughes puts it very simply here (and here).
Vast numbers of people from large parts of the world are really unlikely to tune in to see McFly play in Tokyo, or even U2 in London. U2 are big in America, they’re big in Western Europe, but how do they play in Asia? I don’t know, but I don’t doubt that there are far bigger artists in those parts of the world, and they’re not going to be so very interested in watching a bunch of Western rock stars. And indeed when we see bits of coverage from even the other Live 8 concerts today, they’ve been treated with unwarranted cycnicism by Jonathan Ross. Just because you haven’t heard of them, don’t belittle them.
I seem to be full of negativity today, and that’s not the case as I thought Will Smith kicked the US show off really well. But one final moan. What on earth is all this Golden Circle nonsense?
Ordinarily this weekend would have been Capital Radio’s Party in the Park in aid of the Princes Trust. Those gigs have always had a priviliged area up the front which they packed with screaming kids to get great pictures. Party in the Park made way for Live 8 this year (and some of that texting revenue from the ticketing process has gone to the Princes Trust in recompense), but the Golden Circle remains.
Some of the occupants are obviously winners. Indeed Virgin Radio gave away tickets to it this week. But quite obviously its full of corporate types – Nokia and AOL are all but official “sponsors” of these concerts. The result is that those in front of the stage are not necessarily the most die-hard of fans demonstrating slightly less exuberance than you’d hope from those at the front. And embarrassingly, as is always the case with corporate tickets, the holders seemed to arrive very late, as you could have squeezed a few football pitches between the back of their section and the massed hoi polloi being fenced in further back in the park.
It looked awful, particularly as being a long way back in Hyde Park is no fun in terms of the viewing experience.
Maybe the missing people were all at the bar, since Golden Circle ticket holders were the only ones in the park to be trusted with alcohol.
As I write now, it seems to have filled up a bit more and there’s not such an obvious gap. Maybe the organisers filled it up with a few ordinary folk to stop it looking bad on camera – a kind of concert form of donutting, the practice of having fellow politicians all stand around the person speaking so that he looks very popular when shown on camera (think Paddy Ashdown in the Commons).
Still it was good to see the police at least “having words” with ticket touts.
And it’s been entertaining watching Jonathan Ross struggle with knowing what was happening around him, the small minded-ness of some of the stars feeling big and clever about swearing on pre-watershed telly (I’m looking at you Snoop and Madonna), and sitting through four or five commercials on the interactive feed of the US concert before someone at the Beeb though to pull a switch. (They apologised later, but I’m sure Volvo and Apple to name but two, were pleased with their BBC exposure).
Overall the music’s been pretty good with Coldplay and the Paul McCartney/U2 contribution being well received. The Black Eyed Peas were great too. I’d quite liked to have seen more than 15 seconds of the Pet Shop Boys in Moscow, but sadly we had another Fearne Cotton interview to watch. Oh dear.