Vegas Gala Shapes Up as a Jackson Family Gamble : Benefit: Slow ticket sales force price cuts, while Michael’s role in tonight’s show is minimal. Some money is earmarked for charities.

When announced last summer, NBC’s “The Jackson Family Honors” was shaping up as a massive charity gala featuring a rare live TV performance by Michael Jackson. It was to be staged in Atlantic City in December.

With the concert finally on tap tonight in Las Vegas, much of the sheen has rubbed off:

* Despite indications as late as last week by executive producer Jermaine Jackson that his brother would perform a solo number on the show, Michael’s press representative announced Wednesday that it won’t happen. Michael will simply sing one song with the family and present humanitarian awards to Elizabeth Taylor and Motown Records founder Berry Gordy.

* At the same 12,000-seat MGM Grand Hotel arena where Barbra Streisand recently sold out two shows in less than an hour, tickets were still remaining for the two-hour TV taping as of Friday morning. The slow sales are why prices on thousands of mid-level tickets were cut Wednesday from $350 to $150, sources said. Other tickets range from $50 to $1,000 for special charity packages.

* Though the “musical benefit” could garner up to $6 million in TV broadcast fees and ticket revenues if the concert sells out, only $500,000 is formally pledged to charities not controlled by the Jacksons. The remaining $5.5 million would be paid to a Jackson Family nonprofit foundation--never mentioned in the concert’s ads--to cover production costs, including expenses incurred when the show had to be moved from Atlantic City to Las Vegas, organizers say.

* Hopes for corporate sponsorships to underwrite the cost of the production vanished after Michael Jackson was accused by a 13-year-old boy last August of sexual molestation. The corporate sponsorship figure once being bounced around in the industry was $6 million.

“The challenge for me was to just make it happen,” said Jermaine Jackson, executive producer of the show and president of Jackson Communications Inc., the corporation staging the event. “It was a major challenge just to overcome all the obstacles. Even now, we’re still putting out fires.”

NBC will air the MGM Grand Garden arena show on Tuesday.

The event marks Michael Jackson’s first formal stage appearance since cutting short a world concert tour in November because of a drug addiction he said stemmed partially from dealing with the molestation claims. The entertainer denied the allegations, but reportedly paid more than $10 million last month to settle a lawsuit filed by the boy. No criminal charges have been lodged against the singer.

Jackson’s sister Janet and brother Jermaine will perform solo and the Jackson 5 (minus Michael) are expected to stage a number stocked with 29 Jackson relatives, including mom and pop Katherine and Joe Jackson.

LaToya Jackson, who has claimed she and her siblings grew up in an abusive household and who publicly has questioned brother Michael’s sexual behavior, is not expected to attend. Other musical guests scheduled to perform include Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson and Celine Dion.

“It was most important to bring the family together to help the less fortunate in the world,” Jermaine Jackson said. “The idea behind this whole thing is to give back. It’s a charitable event. We’re not getting paid for this. It’s been a long process and it’s been worth it all.”

The executive producer said “net proceeds” from the event will be donated to the Permanent Charities Committee of the Entertainment Industry, a Studio City-based 52-year-old fund-raising arm of the show business community.

*

The plan is for Permanent Charities Committee to distribute a maximum $500,000 donation, mostly for California earthquake relief, to Northridge Medical Center, St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army, with lesser amounts earmarked for the Friends of Conservation and the Library of Congress’ American Popular Music Program.

If the show sells out, concert promoters speculate that the 12,000 tickets could generate an estimated $2.5 million. Representatives for the Jacksons said the family’s firm already has secured an additional $3.5 million in broadcast fees from NBC in the United States and 25 other stations around the world. The company could generate more revenue if successful in marketing the show to other countries after it airs next week.

A spokesman for the Jackson camp said that if the show sells out, approximately $5.5 million would be paid to Jackson Jubilee Inc., a New Jersey-based nonprofit group, to cover the administrative and production costs of putting on the project.

A lawyer for the family said that Jackson Jubilee was incorporated under New Jersey law on Nov. 8, 1993, and that applications have been filed for nonprofit status. The Internal Revenue Service, the New Jersey Charities Registration Office and the California Registry of Charitable Trusts have no record of the group on file.

Undisclosed portions of the $5.5 million will be paid to Jackson Communications Inc., a family corporation, and Gary Smith, the Emmy-winning producer behind the 200-person, $3-million production, as well as to TWI, a New York agency that negotiated the international broadcast fees.

Representatives for the Jacksons said no one in the family will make money on the event.

*

The “Jackson Family Honors” was originally scheduled for taping in Atlantic City on Dec. 11 to be broadcast as an NBC special on Jan. 10. Corporate sponsors that expressed interest last year in financing the project dropped out after Michael Jackson disappeared and reportedly checked into a London drug-treatment clinic.

The show is being produced by Jackson Communications Inc. The company, based in Iselin, N.J., was formed by Jermaine, his parents and real estate attorney Robert Petrallia in 1991 to pursue the possible development of an entertainment-oriented urban-renewal project in Asbury Park.

The firm, which is reportedly involved in real estate and talent management, negotiated a six-year deal last April with NBC to broadcast the award show annually, sources said.

“The company was set up to give the (Jackson) family an opportunity to develop a dynastic quality very much in the tradition of the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts,” said Petrallia, who is JCI’s chairman and chief executive officer. “But it also has a very big interest in participating in activities that improve the quality of life around the world. Virtually every project we do has some nonprofit aspect to it.”

NBC officials said that when the licensing agreement was first reached between the network and Jackson Communications last summer, the event was designed strictly as an entertainment special. It was only after the plans were under way that the Jacksons decided to turn the event into a benefit, network officials said.

The network added that it researched the listed charities to verify that they were legitimate, but that NBC is not involved in the distribution of the funds to those charities.

Reportedly, the controversy surrounding Michael Jackson and the other members of the family has not impaired commercial sales for the TV show. The show was nearly sold out as of late last week. Major advertisers such as MCI, Volkswagen, General Foods and Procter & Gamble bought time at the rate of $130,000 per 30 seconds, which is about average for this kind of programming.

“You can’t ignore the adverse publicity, but this is one of these situations that you look at from a client-by-client situation,” said Douglas Seay, senior vice president of national broadcast for Hal Riney & Associates, a New York-based agency.

Seay said he was considering buying time on the special for clients: “As a package, this show makes for good counter-programming for the Olympics. There’s an automatic interest factor, not unlike a tawdry soap opera.”

Philips is a free-lance writer and Braxton is a Times staff writer. Times staff writers John Lippman and James Bates also contributed to this story.