Say what you want about Garth Drabinsky, he was terrific at promoting his theatre shows, finding every niche he could to maximize free publicity — otherwise known in the trade as “earned media.”. Case in point: the tradition in Toronto theatres is that the press are invited round to opening night which is usually held on a Wednesday or a Thursday. This would make sense as the reviews would then show up in the papers on Thursday or Friday theatregoers were planning what to do for the weekend.
But the review itself would be fighting for space in the paper amidst all the other entertainment news of the day — the movies opening on Friday, weekend shopping preview — in addition to all the regular everyday news. And so most theatre reviews end up buried in four or five pages in to the entertainment section of the paper, a section which, studies show, is read by only about 30 per cent of those who read the front section. And that would usually be it for a given theatre production’s earned publicity.
But Drabinsky said to heck with that. He would have his press openings early Sunday afternoon. An odd time for theatregoers to be invited to “opening night” but the virtue of staging a news event at that time in the week was that there was nothing much else going on. His afternoon opening would be over in time to make it on to the dinner-hour newscasts (the most watched television news shows of the day); they might make an item on a national newscast; and then, in the Monday newspapers, he’d get right out of the entertainment section and often make the front page with a photo at least. He was taking advantage of the fact that Sundays are generally a black hole when it comes to news but assignment and slot editors still have to feed the goat.
And so it was with the NDP leadership debates, the first of which was held Sunday afternoon in Ottawa. It was a staged event, of course, and was staged by the New Democrats in a professional way that had some appeal for the television cameras. But with nine candidates on stage vying for the leadership, the odds were against seeing many sparks, many clashes of ideas. And, sure enough, there was only the faintest hit of actual debate.
Nonetheless, it got a lot of play. Last night’s CBC and CTV national newscasts both led with news of two Mounties getting shot (they’ll both recover) but coverage of the NDP debate was the second item. The NDP was second on Global National’s newscast, too. Global had led with news of the Russian election. I should note that Sunday’s network TV newscasts tend to get the highest ratings of any day in the week. (Don’t ask me why).
This morning, I see coverage of the NDP debate on the front pages of The Toronto Star, the National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, the Kamloops Daily News and possibly others I haven’t yet seen today . It was the lead item on CBC Radio’s World Report.
Drabinsky would be proud.