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Kenny Rogers Puts His Money on Video

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They’re calling it one of the most expensive music videos ever made--a whopping $600,000 for a 5 1/2-minute clip.

It’s got to be something from Madonna, right? Or maybe Michael Jackson or Def Leppard--a mega-platinum MTV mainstay.

Guess again.

This huge outlay is for an artist whose last two albums didn’t even crack the national Top 100 and whose videos have rarely gotten past the MTV reception desk.

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The video maker: Kenny Rogers.

The clip--to promote “Planet Texas,” his first single for Reprise Records--will premiere on Rogers’ May 20 NBC-TV special.

Why such an expensive video?

Rogers’ manager Ken Kragen believes in massive media events. He’s the man who organized the “We Are the World” recording project and who arranged for former client Lionel Richie to close the 1984 Olympics singing his hit “All Night Long.”

Kragen believes that a performer in today’s competitive market needs an “event” every six months to stay on top. That’s especially true, he feels, for veteran figures such as Rogers, Neil Diamond and Diana Ross, who can no longer count on pop radio airplay.

“At a certain point in an artist’s career, their records become as much marketing projects as they are recording projects,” Kragen said. “Kenny’s audience doesn’t go to record stores regularly anymore, so you have to think of new ways to reach them.”

But Kragen said these events aren’t just designed to impress the public. “Some of their most important influence is to excite the industry,” he said. “When you create events like this, you excite the company that has to go out and sell you.”

Kragen acknowledged that Warner Bros.--which owns Reprise--was initially underwhelmed by the video idea. “They were hesitant because they weren’t sure where a Kenny Rogers video at this point would get much exposure,” he said.

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Warner Bros. wound up contributing $100,000 toward the clip, a largely animated space adventure directed by Julien Temple, best known for the rock film “Absolute Beginners” and acclaimed videos for David Bowie and the Rolling Stones.

NBC pitched in about $200,000, Kragen said, with the balance contributed evenly by the home video company that will release the clip, radio empire Westwood One, which will syndicate a Rogers radio broadcast, and Rogers himself.

To reach Rogers’ large but passive audience, Warner Bros. has arranged for his video to be aired repeatedly in thousands of department stores--2,225 K marts, 900 Wal-Marts and 375 Target stores--through the month of June.

Vic Faraci, senior vice president of Warner Bros./Nashville, explained that Rogers’ fans are more likely to go to a K mart store than to a Tower or Wherehouse record outlet. “Kenny’s absolutely middle America, and our feeling is that’s the audience we have to capture,” he said.

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