Words » In Tune
Payoff time in TV land
I was recently invited to Thailand to celebrate the King’s birthday. He’s seventy now, and also a pretty good sax player. That makes two heads of state that play this prestigious instrument. Bill Clinton, of course, is the other (not that playing the sax is his leisure activity of choice while in the privacy of the Oval Office).
Now I’m not saying that the King called me up on the phone and said, “Hey man, think you can come over to my party and jam?” But it was something like that. I was invited by a Thai TV station to participate in an All-Asian live concert broadcast commemorating His Majesty’s birthday. There would be thousands of people in the audience, the concert would be broadcast nationally, and we would even get a chance to go to the palace and meet the Princess.
Nine artists were invited. A space techno group from Japan, a trio of Korean girls, a Singaporean alternative band, Thailand’s biggest star, Tata Young, a heavy metal band called Blackhead, a Bon-Jovi-esque singer named U TNT, a rock band featuring two of Thailand’s top TV personalities, Roger Idol (Taiwan boy pop star), and myself. I would open the show by playing the King’s Anthem, and later perform with the Thai artists. I couldn’t wait. Or as they say in Thai, Yep! (Cool!)
My promotion staff sprang immediately into action, arranging for exclusive press coverage and a TV crew to accompany me. They explained to me that this was an unbelievable chance. Not so much because I would go to Thailand and play for the King, but because of all the media attention we could attract.
After several lengthy production meetings, it was decided that FUNTV would give us an “exclusive report” on the concert. In media terms, this means that the TV crew gets an all expense paid vacation on our dime in exchange for following me around everywhere with a camera. It would mean some valuable airtime. Airtime? No, not how long Michael Jordan floats in the air before dunking a basketball. The airtime I’m talking about costs record companies millions and millions of promotion dollars. In the record business, TV is an evil money sieve. You have to pay and pay and pay some more. It never stops. Airtime is your just reward.
Did you know that it costs anywhere from NT$50,000 to $150,000 just to get your music video aired once? And then they usually cut it off after two minutes and skip to a sanitary napkin commercial. Anywhere else in the world, the network pays you for putting your face all over the screen. But in Taiwan it’s the other way around. You want to get on TV? Then cough up the bucks, baby. Now think about how many times you’ve seen Polly Wannabe’s sexy new video on the tube. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that her record company is pouring millions into the sieve.
So there I was in Thailand with my entourage of twelve people. It’s very strange travelling around in a Chinese tour group. Decisions take forever. Getting food at a restaurant is a nightmare. But this was work. I had no choice. I seriously needed the airtime. We filmed the concert in front of thousands of screaming fans and did dozens of backstage interviews. FUNTV also wanted me to introduce Bangkok to all the viewers back home. Yep! So we migrated like a herd of mad elephants through the streets of Bangkok, stopping every time I noticed anything of interest. I held a long microphone with a plastic thing on it that said “FUNTV,” and with hundreds of onlookers staring at me, I tried to explain to the camera what it was that I found so interesting.
It only took a few takes before the director came over and explained to me that what I thought was interesting wasn’t at all interesting. “Our audience wants to shop,” he explained, “They don’t care a damn about Thailand. Just tell them how much things costs!”
So the rest of the trip was spend roaming the shopping centers of Bangkok asking vendors, “How much? How much?,” and pointing things out for the camera. Everyone was happy. The crew all bought souvenirs. The director said I was doing a great job.
When we got back to Taiwan, the promotion staff, the record company, and I ordered pizzas and eagerly sat down in front of the TV to watch our Thailand exclusive. Would they emphasize the concert or the street scenes? It didn’t matter, we were gonna get some good airtime out of this.
And yes, there I was for five seconds, holding up a curio, asking the vendor “How much?” But afterwards all we got was some lengthy footage proclaiming how the Princess of Thailand had fallen desperately in love with Roger Idol, and how she didn’t want him to leave the country. Then there was a nice long close-up of Roger Idol singing to his screaming fans, which eventually cut away to a sanitary napkin commercial. We dropped our pizzas and stared at each other. Our airtime was over. Poof. Just like that.
The moral to this story? You get what you pay for. And Roger Idol paid more.
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I've never figured out whether it's pronounced "Moe's (like owned by one of three stooges) or Moss (like that guy out of Bonanza), but the one down the hill from me is open until 2am most days, which means that if I get out of the club early enough, I can catch the best burger in town, the muo si la bao or the Spicy Mos Burger. They have lots of jalapenos and 
