TV Musical Reality Shows Have Boosted Theatre Audiences

21 October 2009 No Comment

Research results announced today have claimed that the musical theatre reality shows which have been shown on BBC1 (How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, Any Dream Will Do and I’d Do Anything) and ITV1 (Grease Is The Word) have boosted audience attendance at theatre’s.

The research, conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Society of London Theatre during the second half of 2008 found that amongst theatregoers who had watched the popular television shows 47% had been more likely to see the production featured, 34% said they were more likely to see musical theatre in general and 23% said they would be more likely to see a non-musical production.

Speaking about the findings to The Official London Theatre Guide, producer of Oliver! amongst many other West End Musicals, Cameron Mackintosh said “There is no doubt that searching for the star of a musical on prime time Saturday night TV has had a tremendously beneficial effect on the West End, not only for promoting a particular show but, just as importantly, exposing new talent who find great opportunities in other productions in the West End and around the country. So the theatre industry has every reason to be grateful to Andrew Lloyd Webber and the BBC for putting musical theatre centre stage and the current buoyant state of the West End is living proof of the benefits.”

In addition SOLT Chief Executive also talking to The Official London Theatre Guide commented “The last two years have seen record attendances for London theatre. It is of obvious interest whether these high-profile TV shows have contributed in some way to ticket sales. The research seems to confirm that major television exposure for West End shows stimulates ticket demand both for the theatre productions featured and – to a lesser though still significant extent – for other productions too.”

Despite these findings further research conducted for SOLT has indicated that although audience numbers may be growing – they are growing audiences from traditional theatre demographics and unfortunatley few from new ones. Does anyone like me think this is due to the cost of musical theatre tickets – as reported in our poll a couple of months ago, Musicalverse readers believe musical theatre tickets to be too expensive.

A new musical theatre casting show to find Dorthy and Toto for the Wizard of Oz will be held in Spring 2010 on BBC1.