How To Save Fuse, Part I: Look Across The Street
In case you didn’t know, Fuse is owned by the historically bumbling cable company Cablevision, which also owns MSG, where tons of concerts are held over the course of the year; the Fuse studios, which are sort of like a mini-MTV setup with a blinking marquee outside, are located across 7th Avenue from the Knicks’ home. If Cablevision finally gets its act together (those of you who have ever had its “services” in your home know that this is somewhat unlikely) and lets Fuse get involved in the booking of a few of those shows–and if it comes up with a few ideas for bigger, more “event”-like concerts, similar to the Jay-Z “retirement concert” chronicled in the movie Fade To Black or, hell, a Jingle Ball-like festival featuring bands that hew toward its more rock-leaning tastes–I think Garden could really help people want to tune into Fuse, instead of just flipping past the channel on their way to G4 and HGTV.
And beyond that: with savvy picks as far as artists go and promotion that goes beyond “hey, let’s stream this on the Internet too!” Fuse could bring live music back to being a little bit more of a communal event, and its lowered ratings expectations thanks to the channel being on cable could serve as a hedge against the idea that ratings for music-related programming are generally declining. (Hey, at the very least, it’s better than the infomercials Fuse runs every morning, right?) And just think of the synergistic opportunity: The fact that good booking for this show will allow Madison Square Garden to showcase itself as something besides a place where people can watch “professional” basketball players implode night after night should be incentive enough for Cablevision’s suits to make this work.
Fuse Rocks The Garden [fuse.tv]