美国伟大的团结活动：梅西百货感恩节大游行
【中美创新时报2024 年 11 月 28 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）尽管自 20 世纪 50 年代以来，梅西百货感恩节大游行一直是美国人客厅和厨房的年度主打节目，但游行只是在过去三年才成为美国收视率最高的娱乐节目。《纽约时报》记者约翰·科布林对此作了下述详细报道。
这可能是电视史上最古怪的 3 个半小时。
周四，“梅西百货感恩节大游行”将重返 NBC，其中包括近十几个游行乐队、火箭女郎、Al Roker、史努比、辛西娅·埃里沃、百老汇剧目“哦，玛丽！”中的科尔·埃斯科拉和圣诞老人。
然而，如果以史为鉴，这场游行将吸引比奥斯卡颁奖典礼、洋基队-道奇队世界大赛或最受欢迎的新年前夜电视转播更多的观众。
尽管自 20 世纪 50 年代以来，它一直是美国人客厅和厨房的年度主打节目，但游行只是在过去三年才成为美国收视率最高的娱乐节目。
除了一些体育赛事或 NFL 大型比赛（可吸引超过 3000 万观众）外，如今在电视上维持观众甚至增加观众人数已是罕见之事。奥斯卡、格莱美和艾美奖等颁奖典礼近年来收视率起伏不定，远低于十几二十年前的高度。
另一方面，自 20 世纪 80 年代末以来，游行的观众人数几乎保持不变——每年大约 2000 万观众。去年，当重播电视转播和 Peacock 流媒体服务的观众人数统计出来时，游行观众人数激增至 2800 多万，创下新高。
“它完全违背了地心引力，”NBC 现场活动和特别节目执行副总裁 Jen Neal 在接受采访时表示。
近年来，随着越来越多的观众放弃传统电视转而转向流媒体，娱乐节目一直在苦苦挣扎。就在上周，NBCUniversal 的母公司康卡斯特宣布，将把其大部分下滑的有线电视业务分拆为一家独立公司。
然而，康卡斯特保留了 NBC 广播网络——部分原因是游行等现场活动。
电视台高管表示，电视转播有很多好处。在数百万人待在家里的日子里，完全被吸引的观众无疑有所帮助。它在人们（通常）心情愉快的时候开启假期的作用也很重要。现场制作的要素——会下雨吗？会结冰吗？风会不会太大，不适合气球飞行？ ——带来了一种不可预测的震撼。
人们似乎也对这场年复一年大体上看起来大致相同的演出怀有深深的怀旧之情：许多彩车、许多气球、十几场表演、相同的开场表演（汤姆火鸡彩车）和相同的踢球者（圣诞老人）。
“这些标志性时刻从一开始就是我们历史和遗产的一部分，”游行执行制片人威尔·科斯 (Will Coss) 说。“我们有意为之。我们关心这一点。”
在三个多小时的时间里，电视转播的每个片段都会轮流播放五到十分钟的表演，然后进入下一个广告时段。这些片段“非常适合我们经过社交媒体训练的大脑”，咨询公司 Cultique 的创始人莎拉·昂格 (Sarah Unger) 说，Cultique 是一家为企业提供改变文化规范建议的公司。
“没有一个片段太长，而且有大量的奇观，”她说。
这不是偶然的。
“游行的妙处在于它包含如此多的元素，每个观众都能找到自己喜欢的东西，”担任该节目电视转播制作人 30 多年的比尔·布雷肯 (Bill Bracken) 说。“我们会在‘即将上映’的片头中解释这一点。让人们知道，‘嘿，也许这不是你最喜欢的，但接下来是这个。’”
它也不受任何政治包袱的影响。当颁奖典礼收视率开始下滑时，一些电视台高管将说教式的政治独白和获奖感言归咎于中产阶级的反感。另一方面，观众可能会忘记总统选举的存在，甚至忘记了选举的年份，这是可以理解的。
“它有点超越了时间和文化——就像一个独立的东西，”昂格说。“它与娱乐业的所有困境和文化战争无关。就像进入了另一个宇宙。”
该节目的制作人长期以来一直试图吸引广泛的观众。百老汇表演的部分目的是为“没有机会去纽约”的家庭准备的，尼尔说。
而来自西弗吉尼亚州、南达科他州、阿肯色州和德克萨斯州等州的高中和大学游行乐队的稳定游行也增加了“美国腹地的一部分，我们非常非常想让它成为真正的全国性盛会”，主持电视转播的《今日》主播萨凡纳·格思里 (Savannah Guthrie) 曾在回顾游行时说道。
（布雷肯说，过去，电视转播曾兴高采烈地突出乐队成员首次乘坐飞机参加游行的情景。）
收视率在全国范围内均匀分布。在过去两年中，纽约、巴尔的摩和康涅狄格州纽黑文等自由派聚居区是游行收视率最高的当地市场之一，但印第安纳州、佛罗里达州、俄亥俄州和密苏里州等可靠的红州的主要市场也是如此。
全面的吸引力引起了广告商的极大兴趣。广告数据公司 Guideline 称，去年，NBC 向赞助商收取的 30 秒广告费平均为 86.5 万美元，今年则接近 90 万美元。Guideline 称，这一费率高于大多数现场娱乐活动，包括格莱美奖、艾美奖、“迪克·克拉克新年摇滚夜”或洛克菲勒中心圣诞树亮灯仪式。只有奥斯卡颁奖典礼的广告费更高。
梅西百货和 NBC 正在就游行转播权的新合同进行谈判。据一位知情人士透露，NBC 向梅西百货支付的转播费预计将上涨。《华尔街日报》此前报道了此次谈判。
鉴于游行的受欢迎程度，更高的转播费并不令人意外。
“娱乐活动正是娱乐活动应该做的事情，”昂格说。“它团结人心，让人逃避现实，很容易获得。过去几年来，所有之前举办的大型单一文化活动都在努力兑现这一承诺。”
本文最初发表于《纽约时报》。
题图：2022 年梅西百货感恩节大游行将在纽约西 77 街和中央公园西站开始。充满怀旧气息的梅西百货大游行是过去三年来美国收视率最高的非体育节目。HIROKO MASUIKE/NYT
附原英文报道：
America’s great unifying event: The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
By John Koblin New York Times,Updated November 27, 2024
The start of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade at West 77th Street and Central Park West in New York in 2022. The nostalgia-fueled Macy’s Parade has been the most-watched non-sports program in the United States for the past three years.HIROKO MASUIKE/NYT
NEW YORK — It might be the kookiest 3½ hours in all of television.
On Thursday, when the “Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade” returns to NBC, the broadcast will be fueled by, among others, nearly a dozen marching bands, the Rockettes, Al Roker, Snoopy, Cynthia Erivo, Cole Escola from the Broadway show “Oh, Mary!”, and Santa Claus.
And yet, if history is any guide, the parade will draw more viewers than the Oscars, the Yankees-Dodgers World Series, or the most popular New Year’s Eve telecast.
Though it has been an annual staple in American living rooms and kitchens since the 1950s, the parade became the most-watched entertainment show in the United States only over the past three years.
Other than some sporting events or marquee NFL games — which can draw more than 30 million viewers — maintaining an audience, or even growing it, is a rarity in television these days. Award shows like the Oscars, Grammys, and Emmys have had seesawing ratings in recent years that are well short of their heights from a decade or two ago.
The parade, on the other hand, has delivered virtually the same audience since the late 1980s — 20 million viewers each year, give or take. Last year, when viewership from an encore telecast and the Peacock streaming service was tallied up, the parade audience ballooned to more than 28 million viewers, a new high.
“It totally defies gravity,” Jen Neal, NBC’s executive vice president of live events and specials, said in an interview.
Entertainment programs have struggled in recent years as more and more viewers abandon traditional television and migrate to streaming. Just last week, Comcast, NBCUniversal’s parent, announced it was spinning off much of its declining cable business into a separate company.
Comcast is, however, keeping the NBC broadcast network — in part because of live events like the parade.
The telecast has plenty going for it, television executives said. A totally captive audience, on a day millions of people stay home, certainly helps. So does its role kick-starting a holiday season when people are (generally) in a good mood. The element of a live production — Will it rain? Will it freeze? Will it be too windy for the balloons? — provides a jolt of unpredictability.
There also seems to be a deep well of nostalgia for a production that, more or less, looks roughly the same year after year: lots of floats, plenty of balloons, a dozen or so performances, the same opening act (the Tom Turkey float), and the same kicker (Santa).
“Those iconic moments have been part of our history and legacy since the earliest days,” said Will Coss, an executive producer of the parade. “We’re intentional about that. We care about that.”
Over more than three hours, each segment of the telecast rotates through five to 10 minutes of performances before heading into the next commercial break. The segments are “perfect for our social media-trained brains,” said Sarah Unger, a founder of Cultique, a consulting firm that advises companies on changing cultural norms.
“No segment is too long, and there’s spectacle in spades,” she said.
That is not an accident.
“The great thing about the parade is that there are so many elements, there’s something for every viewer,” said Bill Bracken, a producer of the telecast for more than 30 years. “It’s something we explain in our ‘coming up’ bumpers. Let people know, ‘Hey, maybe this wasn’t your favorite, but coming up next is this.'”
Nor is it afflicted with any political baggage. When award show ratings began cratering, some television executives blamed preachy political monologues and acceptance speeches for turning off swaths of Middle America. A viewer of the parade, on the other hand, could be forgiven for forgetting that presidential elections exist, or even what year it is.
“It kind of sits outside of time and culture — it’s like this stand-alone thing,” Unger said. “It’s separate from all the entertainment industry woes and the culture wars. It’s like going into an alternate universe.”
Producers of the show have long tried to appeal to a wide audience. Performances from Broadway shows are intended, in part, for families that “don’t have the opportunity to visit New York,” Neal said.
And the steady procession of high school and college marching bands from states like West Virginia, South Dakota, Arkansas, and Texas also adds “that slice of America straight out of the heartland that we really, really want to make it a truly national event,” Savannah Guthrie, the “Today” anchor who hosts the telecast, once said in a retrospective about the parade.
(Bracken said that, in the past, the telecast had gleefully highlighted when band members had taken a plane for the first time to participate in the parade.)
The ratings are evenly distributed across the country. Over the last two years, liberal enclaves like New York, Baltimore, and New Haven, Connecticut, are among the highest rated local markets for the parade, but so are major markets in dependably red states like Indiana, Florida, Ohio, and Missouri.
The across-the-board appeal is of high interest to advertisers. Last year, NBC charged sponsors an average of $865,000 for 30 seconds of commercial time, and this year it’s charging nearly $900,000, according to Guideline, an advertising data firm. That’s a higher rate than most live entertainment events, including the Grammy Awards, the Emmys, “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” or the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting, Guideline said. Only the Oscars command a bigger ad rate.
Macy’s and NBC are in negotiations about a new contract for broadcast rights for the parade. The amount that NBC pays Macy’s to televise the event is expected to go up, according to a person familiar with the talks. The Wall Street Journal previously reported on the discussions.
And a higher rights fee is no surprise given the parade’s ascent.
“It’s entertainment doing exactly what entertainment is supposed to do,” Unger said. “It’s uniting, it’s escapist, it’s easy to access. All the previously major monoculture events have struggled to live up to that promise in the last few years.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
