The Fox Forum has picked up my essay for the Clyde Fitch Report on the naming of Jon Bon Jovi as the “Artist-in-Residence” at NBCFollowing a helpful conversation with the editor of the Fox Forum that got me thinking, I did a rewrite to clarify and expand upon some salient points. The piece, for all you cynics, is still mine.
Here are the opening graphs of the piece:
According to The New York Times, Jon Bon Jovi has signed what some characterize as a first-of-it’s-kind deal with a major TV network. He will be NBC’s “artist-in-residence” for a period of two months. During that period, Bon Jovi will be seen exclusively on an array of shows and platforms connected to NBC Universal, including “The Today Show,” “The Tonight Show,” “The Jay Leno Show,” “Saturday Night Live,” “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” and “Inside the Actors Studio” on Bravo, which the peacock network owns.
What does “artist in residence” mean? It means, writes The Times, he won’t be anywhere else.
“Of course you usually try to be out there everywhere, when a new album is coming out,” Mr. Bon Jovi said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “So we have to sacrifice certain shows and relationships. We hope this doesn’t jeopardize any of them. But in a shrinking media environment, you have to kind of reinvent the wheel.”
Well, not only reinvent it if you’re Bon Jovi, but you want to spin the wheel, too, so it lands on your number. Bully for Bon Jovi. Bully for the idea that there’s something innately valuable in the word “artist,” to the extent that a network is giving this marketing nomenclature a shot.
Interestingly, the idea was proposed to NBC by Bon Jovi’s representatives. The network didn’t come up with it on their own.
