Commentary

U2 On Letterman; More Music Marketing Tricks To Come

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, February 13, 2009

It's the U2 mini-series -- on CBS.

U2 will be the first musical guest on "Late Show with David Letterman" to be on for an entire week -- all to promote their new album "No Line on the Horizon," being released in conjunction with the Letterman appearance.

Considering music marketers' problems of late, this seems out of the ordinary -- as well as expected. CD sales continue to decline at a hefty double digit clip in 2008. All the more reason that musical acts need to find other outlets of exposure.

For example, in this economy, one would expect even bigger musical stars to make their way onto the likes of"American Idol" this year. We've already had Barry Manilow offering up a primer for early-round "American Idol" contestants.

Concert promoter Live Nation and music ticket seller Ticketmaster merging seem a sign the music business needs more vertical integration for it to succeed - more marketing heft to help Live Nation's stable of musical acts, including Madonna, be successful.

But don't kid yourself. People still want music cheap. Sirius XM Radio is already in financial trouble. Few music fans want to shell out anything extra for auto audio equipment or monthly service fees.

In the past, a band might play just one single from their upcoming album on a particular TV show. U2 looks like they'll play a bunch of songs from the new album -- if not everything.

The music marketing tricks seem to be coming hot and heavy: In 2007, Radiohead let its fans decide what it wanted to pay for the band's new album, "In Rainbows."

In future, you can expect musical acts to show up in places you'd least expect -- especially on TV, still the biggest bang for their marketing buck. It's even better if a TV show calls you a week-long guest.

4 comments about "U2 On Letterman; More Music Marketing Tricks To Come ".

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Robert Smith from VNA, February 13, 2009 at 11:14 a.m.
It's back to the future. Remember the Mike Douglas Show, with his week-long guests that included John Lennon and Yoko Ono?
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Arthur Greenwald from Greenwald Media, February 13, 2009 at 11:24 a.m.

Robert Smith has quite a memory! But John & Yoko were week-long co-hosts of a 90 minute show and were given relatively free reign in booking guests. Among those they invited were radical activist Jerry Rubin and Ralph Nader. Mike Douglas was a good sport but looked like someone's grandpa who had wandered into the wrong Wal-Mart. Among the show's producers was a young Roger Ailes, now head of Fox News.

Mark Mccray from Turner Broadcasting, February 13, 2009 at 12:36 p.m.

U2’s appearance on David Letterman for the entire week reminds me of the format for The Mike Douglas Show from the 70s where Mike and a celebrity (Betty Davis, Diana Ross & The Supremes, etc.) would co-host an entire week with Mike Douglas. Perhaps this old school format will see a return in this economy.

Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, February 13, 2009 at 2:06 p.m.

The difference today is that music performances are in stereo, so anyone who wants to record the songs on Letterman can move the MP3s to their iPod, with or without the video, and skip buying the recording. Yes, we could do that years ago, but Ed Sullivan was not stereo and recording to cassette produced a lovely hiss that even Dolby couldn't quite eliminate. So we bought the LPs. And eight-tracks.

The reason there was ever a recording industry was because consumers NEEDED someone to professionally record performances onto a format that would produce high-fidelity sound. Nowadays, thanks to digital bits and bytes, it's easy to capture sound from TV. So where's the marketing if we bypass acquiring a legal copy of the CD or the MP3 file?