Media Coverage
Astaire's first foray into television dance, and the introduction of his new dance partner, Barrie Chase, drew significant media coverage, the most prominent being a feature on the cover of TV Guide for October 11–17, 1958 and an inside article: "Now for the Dance Bash", formally announcing the new partnership to the American public. The show went on to win the Trendex rating race for its time slot and the week. TV Guide followed up with an in-depth feature article on December 13, 1958: "How Fred Astaire discovered Barrie Chase" and again featured Astaire and Chase on its cover on October 31, 1959, promoting Another Evening with Fred Astaire.
Not all media coverage was so positive however. After the show won an unprecedented nine Emmy awards, Ed Sullivan queried whether Astaire should have been awarded the Best Actor Award. Astaire promptly offered to return the award protesting: "I'm an actor, and this Emmy is for a performance by an actor, isn't it? When I do a difficult pantomime in a dance which tells a story, what do they think it is? Tiddlywinks?". He kept the award, but when Variety reported that MCA had lost $75,000 on the show he retorted angrily: "Kindly retract erroneous article in last week's Variety. Here are the facts: The entire package is mine, via Ava Productions Corp. MCA merely acted as my agent with the sponsor. Nobody had any cut. All the expenses were paid for by me and the show definitely turned in a sizeable profit. Though I was not interested in that phase, I would like to make it clear that I am not completely nuts. I particularly directed that no expense be spared in carrying out my plans, ideas and designs for the show which I had been working on for some time."
Read more about this topic: An Evening With Fred Astaire
Famous quotes containing the word media:
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)