At-Home Deadheads to Provide Test of Pay-Per-View Rock

You can be a Deadhead tonight without even leaving your living room.

The Grateful Dead will perform before 13,000 fans at the Shoreline Amphitheatre south of San Francisco, but potentially millions of fans around the country will be able to see them on pay-per-view TV.

For those fans preferring more of a concert atmosphere, the four-hour Dead show will also be carried via closed circuit in selected clubs and theaters, including Bogart’s in Long Beach.

Both cable-TV and rock insiders will be watching the results of the 7 p.m. concert to see if there is a market for regular pay-per-view rock shows.

“In one night you can be on ‘tour’ in the entire country,” said Bruce Karpas, president of Reiss Media Productions, a New York-based firm that distributes the new monthly “King Biscuit Television” pay-per-view concert series. Among the coming cablecasts will be the Who’s Universal Amphitheatre “Tommy” concert Aug. 24.

“King Biscuit” will also present a September pay-per-view show by Yes veterans Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe. In addition, on Aug. 13 Showtime Event Television, which is offering the Dead concert, will present the Moscow Music Peace Festival, starring Bon Jovi.

The Rolling Stones’ summer and fall stadium tour is also expected to include a pay-per-view date, and discussions are under way for a cablecast of one of Ringo Starr’s summer shows.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the prospects of these living room events.

“I hope that’s not the future,” said promoter Bill Graham, who is producing the Dead concert but is not connected to the telecast. “Because then it creates a distance that I’ve never felt was quite right. With most rock ‘n’ roll there’s a physicalness, a passion you feel in the room. How can you capture that on camera?”

Still, the dollars make the notion of pay-per-view quite compelling. The Dead concert is available to 11 million households--at $19.95 a pop for those who care to sign up. (Bogart’s is charging $12 admission.)

The concert will also be stereo simulcast by Westwood One radio, available in Los Angeles on KLSX-FM (97.1) and in San Diego on KGMG-FM (102.1).

With anywhere between 1% and 8% of those households being considered the likely range to sign up for rock concerts, and with the talent generally taking 15% to 25% of the fees, the potential earnings for a band stands anywhere between $400,000 and more than $4 million for one concert performance, according to an industry source.

But the consensus is that it’s far too early to tell how successful such ventures will actually be, or what--if any--effect this approach could have on the nature of rock touring.

“I’m still not convinced they work,” said Showtime Event Television president Scott Kurnitt, who was involved with two early-’80s pay-per-view experiments with concerts by the Who and the Rolling Stones, as well as one by the Dead on New Year’s Eve, 1988. “The industry’s experience is quite narrow.”

All agree that there is a ready-made audience for pay-per-view.

“It’s certainly no replacement for the real thing,” said Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally. “But it’s tough to go to rock ‘n’ roll shows, tough to get the tickets and, for people over 30, it’s even less inviting, especially for people with kids. What this is about is another service to the older audience for whom going to a show is too demanding.”

Many aging musicians, too, are unwilling to take on a grueling touring schedule. Graham points to Dire Straits and Talking Heads, whose leaders have pretty much nixed the idea of touring for the time being. The lure of a big pay-per-view payoff, Graham acknowledges, could entice some acts to drastically limit their appearances.

But people involved warn that the results of the Dead’s show should not be taken as a gauge of the future of rock pay-per-view, especially given the unique loyalty of the band’s fans.

“With the Dead there’s such a following that wants to see them any chance it gets,” Showtime’s Kurnitt said. “Of all the acts, pay-per-view is perfect for them. I think the Dead will do well on pay-per-view for years.”

Kurnitt is also confident that the Moscow festival, sure to attract considerable publicity, will do very well on the pay-per-view basis, as will the “Tommy” show, which is only being performed in New York and Los Angeles.

“But for other, less visible concerts,” he said, “the jury’s still out.”