Why PBS Dropped DCI Broadcast - Other Thought

[BRASSO]

PBS also once televised the DCI Eastern Regionals live, and some of the other regionals live at one time too.

I used to have an old VHS tape of the PBS DCI Regionals in Allentown when we were down there performing one year. I think I threw out the PBS telecast by mistake in our spring cleaning a few years back. Anyway, its gone.... oh well.

As an aside.. anybody here remember the " Everybody loves Raymond " tv sitcom skit where about 15 years after his wedding , Ray tapes over their Wedding with a Bills- Giants TV football game on the old wedding tape ?. Anyway, His wife Debra fondly begins to watch on their TV their old Wedding tape, snuggling next to Ray on their living room couch one night,... then it quickly switches to the Bills- Giants NFL football game..... haha!. Oh brother... then all hell breaks lose when Debra immediately jumps off the couch and goes nuclear on Ray.... . funny skit, imo.

Edited November 15, 2014 by BRASSO

[JimF-LowBari]

Sounds like the Jim Jones tapes for sale on DCW. Supposedly some of those tapes were reused for reruns of "I Love Lucy". So it's a corps show that hasn't been seen for years and all of a sudden it's <singing "I Love Lucy" theme>. Of course those are not for sale.

I can remember why I contacted DCW about the tapes but danged if I remember how we got on this subject.....

LOL - have the 1975 Legacy DVD and at least once the graphic for a (PBS?) station for Madison pops up in the middle of the show. Reminded of that by the "Raymond" referene as Gene RAYburn and his wife did the hosting. Too bad that isn't on the DVD.

There was a one hour chopped version of 1977 DCA at Allentown that made it on some PBS stations. Pittsburgh friend saw it and I had to wait 35 years to see in on YT. Also missed 1984 DCI as was at a wedding in Western PA and got to the hotel as DCI was starting. But... the area PBS station was showing it the next day.

Edited November 15, 2014 by JimF-LowBari

[Jeff Ream]

Where is your cite that DCI decided to take their DCI young performers off TV at PBS because ( as you claim ) " the DCI expense of producing the continuation of the broadcast " was something that DCI could no longer ( your claim ) " afford the expense " of doing so ? My understanding was that PBS decided to pull the plug on the DCI Finals telecast essentially because the pledges declined, and the promised pledges that did come in, began to renege on those promises to a level that PBS could no longer live with.

Are you perhaps confusing the Finals loss at PBS with that of ESPN ? It is my understanding that DCI put out the word that the expense of putting the Finals on ESPN ( as a short replacement to the PBS venture ) could no longer be afforded by DCI to make it a financially worthwhile venture for DCI moving forward. But if you heard that DCI also unilaterally pulled the plug with PBS as well because of the same reason they did at ESPN ( as you claim ) thats certainly new news to me.

it's not cheap getting satellite time to go on live tv.

[Brutus]

This silly conjecture about pledges is pedestrian and misguided. The simple truth is that DCI and PBS and other stations like ESPN can't afford to purchase and clear the music rights for domestic television broadcast. Nothing more. (Ever wonder why "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Disney's Pinnocchio played by Star in 1994 was the last Disney song ever played by a corps, and why many corps arrangers' bodies have been found down by the LA river?)

For example, the Cavaliers may have received clearance to perform Billy Joel songs for their show And So It Goes in stadiums and live performances during 2007. And the Cavaliers may have received clearance to sell a recording of that show's DCI finals performance on DVDs and CDs sold by DCI globally in perpetuity. But the Cavaliers probably didn't have rights clearance for a national television broadcast of Billy Joel songs-- a much bigger exposure with a much bigger fee attached. That means no TV broadcast.

Now multiply that by all 25 competing corps' repertoires, including taped recordings used in shows, and including top-drawer hits like Les Miserables, Bohemian Rhapsody, Phantom of the Opera, and David Bowie's Major Tom, and you have yourself a rights clearance nightmare, a risk which apparently Big Loud Live is willing to assume probably because it's under the clause of "non-theatrical screening", a specialized distribution industry term for prison, film festival, and institutional screenings. (As drum corps fans, we all deserve to be institutionalized.)

Warner Brothers Music, EMG Sony Pictures, Disney and tons of other distributors now have dedicated clearance teams on the lookout for rights clearance infractions. One interesting example of a rights clearance issue is the Sirius XM satellite broadcast of MSNBC's news program. In the middle of MSNBC's broadcast, XM will silence clips from other TV stations and substitute easy listening music during those clips. Why? Because MSNBC only cleared the rights for those clips to appear on a domestic cable television broadcast, but not a domestic subscription radio broadcast like Sirius XM.

It's that specific. God help us.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Brutus

[JimF-LowBari]

Point of the thread is not why DCI doesn't use PBS today. Point is to discuss why it was dropped in the past so a piece of DC history may be better understood.

Edited November 15, 2014 by JimF-LowBari

[Tim K]

This silly conjecture about pledges is pedestrian and misguided. The simple truth is that DCI and PBS and other stations like ESPN can't afford to purchase and clear the music rights for domestic television broadcast. Nothing more. (Ever wonder why "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Disney's Pinnocchio played by Star in 1994 was the last Disney song ever played by a corps, and why many corps arrangers' bodies have been found down by the LA river?)

It's that specific. God help us.

I do not question most of what you say and you do sound as if if you know what you are talking about, but Star was not the last corps to use Disney music. The corps have not been finalists, and I'd have to go to corpsreps to identify them, but I know I've heard "Newsies" "Lion King" "Little Mermaid" snippets in some shows. Now whether the corps had the permission and secured the rights are another matter.

While the licensing issues are real, the pledge debates may be a bit exaggerated. The pledge blitzes we now see are within the past ten to fifteen years, perhaps twenty. When DCI was broadcast on PBS, pledge drives were relatively mom and pop ventures with little or no star power except in major markets. Today pledges may influence if DCI were to return to PBS, but I don't think it was the deciding factor. ESPN and the abilities to ESPN to cover the event well and generate funds for DCI were probably the most significant factors.

[traverbanking]

The PBS/DCI production history (I believe) was as follows:

[traverbanking]

The PBS/DCI production history (I believe) was as follows:

[traverbanking]

The PBS/DCI production history (I believe) was as follows: Starting in 1975 WGBH produced and paid for the DCI telecast, hoping enough other PBS stations would pay WGBH for the broadcast rights to cover their production costs. This lasted for several years until WHA in Madison took over using the the same financial scenario (as far as I know) of hoping enough other stations would sign up to cover the costs. This also lasted for several years. Eventually, no PBS station could afford to produce this on their own. DCI then decided to continue the broadcasts (and this is about the time the broadcast went to the 2-hour format) and found corporate sponsors to cover the costs (Tombstone PIzza). Eventually Bill Cook underwrote the the expenses for the telecast. When Bill Cook stopped underwriting the telecast is when DCI eventually decided to pay to buy broadcast time on ESPN.

[BRASSO]

This silly conjecture about pledges is pedestrian and misguided. The simple truth is that DCI and PBS and other stations like ESPN can't afford to purchase and clear the music rights for domestic television broadcast. Nothing more. (Ever wonder why "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Disney's Pinnocchio played by Star in 1994 was the last Disney song ever played by a corps,

For example, the Cavaliers may have received clearance to perform Billy Joel songs for their show And So It Goes in stadiums and live performances during 2007. And the Cavaliers may have received clearance to sell a recording of that show's DCI finals performance on DVDs and CDs sold by DCI globally in perpetuity. But the Cavaliers probably didn't have rights clearance for a national television broadcast of Billy Joel songs-- a much bigger exposure with a much bigger fee attached. That means no TV broadcast.

So what you're telling us is that all these annual H.S. and College Cheerleader competitions we see on ESPN ( some from Disneyworld )with all the music played in their competition, have " purchased and cleared the music rights for domestic television broadcast" ? And all these horrifically untalented bad singers we watch and listen to on American Idol and similar type shows singing incredibly bad versions of current hit songs in competition " have purchased and cleared the music rights " before they compete on national TV before millions , and the stations made them do so before the untalented nitwit made fools of themselves giving crappy renditions of nationally acclaimed artist's songs on TV before a national audience ? Are you serious ? THIS is what you want us to believe ? Marching Bands, Drum Corps are on TV in nationally televised parades all the time too... some playing all manner of current songs in some cases too.... 'never an issue.

.. Frankly, few if any of these Singers, Drum Corps, Marching Bands, Cheerleaders, etc have found the music they sing or play as an impediment at all to their securing their exposure to a large, national television audience..... not insofar as music copyright issues are concerned anyway.

Edited November 15, 2014 by BRASSO