Pink bizarrely hosting the Tony Awards is a bad…
So, the Tony Awards’ last best hope is . . . Pink?
When the “Get The Party Started” singer was announced this month as the host of the CBS award show on June 7 that celebrates Broadway, not aughts pop hits, theater execs had been gobsmacked.
“Ridiculous!,” one texted me.
“Honestly brilliant though,” dashed off another within seconds.
I’d call it neither ridiculous nor sensible. Desperate is the phrase.
Pink is bizarrely hosting the Tony Awards this 12 months. WWD via Getty Images
They’ve acquired Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with D and that stands for Desperate!
The Tonys, which, let’s be sincere, honors a handful of often tiny performs and musicals scattered around 13 blocks of Midtown Manhattan and Lincoln Center, scored just 4.9 million viewers last 12 months.
Sure that’s a post-COVID best, but still far decrease than the 8.4 million who watched in 2016 when “Hamilton” took home Best Musical.
Even “Ham”’s quantity — the highest since, gulp, 2001 — wouldn’t have cracked the top 100 broadcasts of last 12 months. Folks at home would a lot relatively watch CBS’ “Tracker” starring Justin Hartley instead.
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But there’s major change afoot, coming from people who I guess have never heard of “Caroline or Change.”
This 12 months, longtime Tonys producers White Cherry Entertainment, who’ve been at it since 2004, had been changed with Raj Kapoor, the man who’s helmed the past two Oscars (uh oh!).
Pink is Kapoor’s first big transfer. Perplexingly, mystifyingly big.
She’s the uncommon Tonys host — in fact, the only host, so far as I can inform — with no tangible connection to Broadway. Pink has never carried out on the Great White Way, she’s never co-produced a show, she’s never been an usher, she’s never offered $40 wine in a sippy cup.
She makes Keanu Reeves appear like Angela Lansbury.
The show that celebrates Broadway has been struggling with declining viewership. CBS via Getty Images
One of her songs is used in “Moulin Rouge: The Musical,” yeah, yeah, yeah, but so is one of everyone’s.
Pink acknowledged her uncommon match in a assertion.
“I’ve never been on Broadway, and shouldn’t you have to have been on Broadway in order to host?,” she said.
Great query, Pink.
“That seems fair and right. But when I asked my daughter, she was really excited about being able to have a ticket to go to the Tonys, so I’m hosting the Tonys.”
What a cause. Actually, one of the unhappy realities of the Tonys is that anyone can buy a ticket for $731 to sit in Radio City Music Hall’s nosebleeds with some of Men’s Wearhouse’s best prospects.
Pink said her daughter was her main motivation for hosting the Tonys. Bruce Glikas/Getty Images
But will Pink actually deliver any more eyeballs to the show?
It’s extraordinarily exhausting to imagine she was the producers’ No. 1 selection. ABC has a exhausting enough time getting anyone to agree to host the Oscars, and CBS’ Tonys aren’t precisely a plum gig next to those.
Plus Pink hasn’t launched a new album in three years.
Anyway, I’m sick of the complete “star power gets ratings” line. It’s antiquated and no longer true. Award reveals just aren’t attracts, no matter who attends or emcees them.
The best case situation for the telecast is that the musicals are the real stars, as in the “Hamilton” 12 months.
George Clooney was nominated for a Tony Award in 2025. Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
But this season has maybe the weakest crop of new musicals since “Sunset Boulevard” and “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” had been the only two nominees in 1995. Nobody’s tuning in for “Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York).”
I’m not holding my breath for Pink tremendous followers to skyrocket Tonys scores to new highs.
The Tonys are area of interest. There’s nothing anyone can do to make them mainstream. If 5 million viewers aren’t price the community’s time and assets, it’s conceivable that the Tonys gained’t be on CBS for much longer.
Yet Broadway wants those 5 million or so older-skewing viewers who know Audra, Patti and Bernadette by their first names in order to promote tickets. It’s their largest showcase.
If CBS’ effort to intercourse up the Tonys with Pink doesn’t work, Broadway will need to ponder the chance of what’s occurring to the Oscars in two years — Willkommen, bienvenue, YouTube!
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