The Latest Disson Show
Louis Epstein
Saturday the Boitano show,Sunday the Witt show...both "Disson Skating"
shows...do they have a monopoly or something?
Does the bit with Nicole Bobek skating to "You're so Vain" with the
chair mean that our favorite Chairasexual has entered s rocky phase
in her relationship with her adored furnishing?
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.
Teenes
or seven figure skating specials a year, and it has a TV deal with NBC
to air them. Unlike many shows and previous skating shows, the network
has nothing to do with these shows - Disson buys the airtime and finds
the sponsors themselves, which is why you see such a heavy emphasis on
sponsors in this show. Logos on the black banners across the on-ice
seats, on the ice, on the commercial bumpers, in the name of the show,
on the fluff pieces...the same commercials used over and over... As
you could probably guess from watching a number of these specials,
Smuckers, McCormick, AFLAC, etc, are all primary sponsors of Disson's
group of shows.
They don't have a monopoly, they're just one of the few production
companies still invested in producing skating specials now that
skating's popularity has declined and it no longer gets the ratings it
used to (also, since ClearChannel bought SFX which bought Candid
Productions which produced a whole lot of the old pro competitions, and
I think it also bought Jefferson Pilot Sports, among others, that
produced some of the other fluffier pro events of the
90's...ClearChannel seems interested in producing nothing but Ice Wars
these days, and many of the old pro skating shows and competitions have
subsequently died)). They have an affiliation with IMG (either that,
or they're owned by them), which is why you see a rather large IMG
skater involvement in the shows.
I'm surprised you hadn't heard of them - Disson Skating has been
producing this series of shows for the last 4 years. The Kurt, Brian,
Katarina, and Kristi shows have carried over all 4 years. They had a
Tara show one year (Hip Hop on Ice - good lord), Scott Hamilton had a
show every year up until this year, they always do a tribute to a
different artist (Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Burt Bacharach, Andrea
Bocelli, Kenny Loggins), and they always do a Holiday show.
Steve Disson was actually one of the primary people behind the
StarSkates series of shows (also aired on NBC) a few years back - he
seems to have a particular interest in combining live music and figure
skating, possibly b/c of the additional draw the musical acts bring in.
I think the musical acts they tend to lean towards are more
family-friendly b/c of the sponsors (Smuckers wouldn't even let them
show shots of the skaters pretending to drink or smoke in last year's
Gotta Skate, despite its setting in a nightclub and Brian Boitano's
Hernando's Hideaway rather prominently featuring a cigar - the camera
cut to a far out shot of his back during that sequence).
I've seen a fair amount of confusion on this newsgroup about Disson
Skating's role in these specials. Does this clear things up at all?
Shillelagh
"Teenes" <ttya...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1104794196.7...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> I've seen a fair amount of confusion on this newsgroup about Disson
> Skating's role in these specials. Does this clear things up at all?
And what is your job with the company?
Shelagh
Teenes
Heh. Had the feeling it'd come across that way. I don't have one. I
just have been tracking their events for 4 years now for my Kurt
Browning/Pro Events website and I can put information together.
Everything I posted is easily known just by paying attention and the
fact that BOI and IFS have profiled Disson from time to time.
Shillelagh
I very seldom read BOI, and don't buy the skating mags. The skating mags
are so far out of date by the time they land on the shelves - why pay the
money? I can get all the info on the 'net. ;>)
Shelagh
Teenes
mags
> are so far out of date by the time they land on the shelves - why pay
the
> money? I can get all the info on the 'net. ;>)
I don't tend to buy the skating magazines either, unless there's
something on Kurt, that's what browsing in a bookstore is for. What I
know about Disson primarily comes from the 'net. I just know that
either IFS or BOI had an article on Disson a couple issues back, though
I didn't read it in detail. It's a more concrete source since I can't
remember all the places I gathered info from over the years. Disson's
been in the business for some time now.
The skating mags do tend to have a bit more in terms of in-depth
interviewing or behind-the-scenes exclusives, but I agree that most of
their news is out of date by the time they hit the shelves.
Trudi Marrapodi
"Teenes" <ttya...@yahoo.com> wrote:
[snip]
> I think the musical acts they tend to lean towards are more
> family-friendly b/c of the sponsors (Smuckers wouldn't even let them
> show shots of the skaters pretending to drink or smoke in last year's
> Gotta Skate, despite its setting in a nightclub and Brian Boitano's
> Hernando's Hideaway rather prominently featuring a cigar - the camera
> cut to a far out shot of his back during that sequence).
[snip]
On what planet? I saw him puffing away on my TV.
Personally, I think it's a mistake to peddle cigars as some kind of chic
accessory, as smoking them is just as bad as smoking anything else. But
that's me. I realize I'm out of step with the double noughts on that one.
--
Trudi
in the home of the official Crayola "Rock and Roll Raspberry" state
Trudi Marrapodi
<me...@cat.howl> wrote:
Lord knows that is true. Last time I read one this past week, it was
salivating over the potential of Bourne & Tcherneyshev.