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Jo Caird: As Seen On TV? – When Theatre Looks to Television for Audiences

Watching
Downton Abbey on Sunday night, I was surprised to
see an advert for the National Theatre’s production of War
Horse
in the West End. I don’t watch a lot of television,
so theatre adverts on TV aren’t something I’ve ever really been aware of, and
it got me thinking.

I
wrote a little while ago about theatre trailers, basically concluding
that I dislike them because they don’t convey much of what makes
theatre theatre, ie. its liveness
(see below for the link). But I think this is a slightly different
issue. Lots of companies make trailers for shows these days, but you
won’t see them on TV. They’re posted to theatre websites such as this one, circulated on social networking sites like Twitter and
Facebook and made available on theatre companies’ websites for
prospective punters to check out. In other words, they’re seen
largely by people seeking them out, people who already go to the
theatre and are trying to decide whether or not to see a particular
show.

TV
adverts, on the other hand, are viewed passively by people who happen
to be watching whatever programme the adverts are interrupting. I
almost wrote ‘accidentally’, rather than ‘passively’, but of course
there’s nothing accidental about a process that is meticulously
planned by marketeers drawing on a wealth of audience demographics
statistics. If you see an advert for one of the few shows that are
occasionally advertised on TV, it’s because a calculated risk has
been taken that you will be receptive to it.

If
you’re interested in Downton Abbey, you might be
up for going to see War Horse, another drama set
around the time of the First World War. If you’re a fan of
Glee, you might also enjoy the musical
Wicked. If you’re into wildlife documentaries,
you’d probably get a kick out of The Lion King.
Okay, I made that last one up, but still, you get the idea.

What’s
encouraging about the fact that theatre productions are
increasingly being advertised on television is that
advertisers are making their assumptions on what will sell to whom based on audience transferability.
I don’t want to be premature in my optimism here, or to read too much
into a set of decisions that have been made based purely on a desire
to increase profits of West End shows, but it’s great news that
advertisers are acknowledging that there is enough of an audience
crossover between theatre and television to make this presumably very
pricy advertising worthwhile.

Theatre
is never going to be as mainstream as television – even if every
other barrier is removed, television is always going to be the
easier, and therefore more popular option, because you can enjoy it
in the comfort of your own home. But it seems like finally the two
art forms are getting closer together in terms of their audiences.

The
War Horse TV campaign is undoubtedly the most
promising of the examples I’ve given. Television audiences are already
familiar with West End musicals via the influence of programmes such
as How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? and
Over the Rainbow, where members of
the public go through an extended, publicly voted audition process in
the hope of being cast in a leading West End musical theatre role. Straight plays are
less familiar, and, given that they are still regarded as elitist,
where musicals are not, are a more difficult sell. If just a few of
the 10 million or so people that watch Downton Abbey
each episode (this number is based on the viewing figures for the
first series), decide to take a chance on War Horse
and like what they see (and why wouldn’t they, it’s a brilliant
show), that’s thousands of potential new theatre-goers, who will hopefully go on to take further chances on other shows.

I still don’t think theatre trailers, whether on TV or not, do their productions justice, but if they can tempt new audiences into theatres, I’m certainly willing to give them a chance.