U2 On Letterman
Does this benefit Letterman more than U2?
Only a band based in Ireland (mmm, are they really based there, aren’t they located somewhere else for TAX reasons?) could be so out of touch as to think that late night TV sells records.
Talk about desperate.
If you want to have any effect from television whatsoever, you play DAYTIME TV, not LATE NIGHT TV.
I’m at MusiCares and an insider asks me which offer a legendary band should take, Leno or Ellen. I immediately say Ellen. Turns out this band wanted to do Leno. Because they’re all sixty and still believe it’s 1977. They probably don’t even stay up late enough to WATCH late night TV. But it gets even better. A senior executive younger than the band, who works in Burbank, had just told me upstairs that late night TV doesn’t sell albums, that you’re better off doing Ellen!
As for U2… Hate to tell them, their audience is fortysomething. The women watch "Today" and Ellen. Many are home with the kids, they’ve got the tube on in the background. As for their hubbies? They’re exhausted by 11:30, if they’ve still got jobs. And if they don’t, they can’t afford any U2 tickets/merchandise. The target audience is littered with kids, they’re not addicted to late night TV.
As for the young ‘uns, most of whom don’t even give a shit about U2? They’re watching Conan at best. And the younger they are, the more they’re not watching TV, at least not on the tube/big screen at all.
If U2 truly wanted to make a dent, truly wanted to do something special, they would have played five nights a week on HULU! There should be some kind of Web play.
What kind of crazy world do we live in where MTV gives up playing videos, realizing they’ve become an on demand feature online, and U2 plays a week on a low-rated late night show that airs once?
Oh, maybe Dave will put the performances up on his site. But not on YouTube, where the audience goes. That’s like putting your album on sale in indie stores only, not Best Buy and Wal-Mart. You’ve got to go where the fans ARE!
You want to stunt? Use the Net. Do a Trent Reznor, leaving USB sticks around as clues. You don’t appear on a long in the tooth TV show with a host who makes YOU look old who doesn’t influence record buyers.
Utterly ridiculous.
But good for Letterman in his never-ending fight against Leno!
Yup, Letterman gets a coup. Gets a patina of hipness around his show. End benefit for U2? A press release and not much more.
The band takes a risk in its music but no risk in its marketing?
Who’s running this ship?
Makes me wonder whether Bono is on the right track in the rest of his ventures…
