PBS Pledge Drive

Music on TV? It thrives at pledge time

Music, once a prime part of television, has been nudged to the fringe.
Mostly, it shows up in award shows, in competitions, in the final minutes of latenight talk shows. And it fills PBS pledge drives.
That’s where we are now. Stations are stuffing this pledge period with the songs of Billy Joel, Kenny Rogers, the Rolling Stones and more, from a Pink Floyd cover band to, as usual, Celtic Woman.
And in a change-of-pace (shown here with Jenn Colella), they have Broadway’s Lerner-and-Loewe songs, given a fresh twist. Read more…

Once a blissful “late bloomer,” Groban is a powerhouse singer with new PBS special

A brief sampling — Josh Groban singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” at Madison Square Garden — makes one thing clear: This powerhouse singer is in the hands of skillful TV people. Groban’s concert is Monday on most PBS stations, a key element to their pledge drives.

For Josh Groban, this all happened in a sudden swoosh.

He was, he says, a teen-ager with a “blissful naivete,” belting out show tunes at home and in class. Suddenly, he was with two important Davids (Foster and Kelley) and a Rosie (O’Donnell). He became a music star and now a key to the latest pledge drive. Read more…