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Here's a really COO-WIL IDEA for a new Dance Show to put on the new CW, Fox, or even NBC...

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DeanSB

Here's a really COO-WIL IDEA for a new Dance Show to put on the new CW, Fox, or even NBC...

Back in the 1990's, MuchMusic (both in the U.S. and Canada) aired a Dance Music show on Friday nights from 8:30 pm Central time until 10:00pm, and it was LIVE-TO-AIR!!

This show was called "Electric Circus" and it was unlike any Dance Music show up to that point.

There are several reasons for this...

1) The show featured the newest and most current Dance/Techno/Electronica tracks each week, AND aired the videos for several of these tracks (in tandem with showing the EC Dancers in the EC Environment dancing to the tracks).

2) EC had a weekly Top 10 Dance Chart featuring the Top 10 Dance videos of the week. They played snippets of the #10 to #2 videos, and played the #1 song/video in its entirety.

3) EC also showed the latest Dance / Club Top 10 charts from different International chart magazines, such as Billboard here in the U.S., as well as chart magazines from Canada, Great Briiain, and the Euro charts too!

4) The show also had live performers on several of their shows, performing 1 or 2 songs live in the Environment and in front of the Dancers, and they sang the song LIVE, NOT lip-synched like on Bandstand in the 70's.

5) EC also had a News segment featuring news from the Dance Music / Club world each week, and kept audiences up-to-date on things like the Winter Music Conference in Miami and other events like those throughout the world.

6) About once a month, EC did theme shows. One month, they would do a show featuring all Latin Dance music, another month, they would do an entire show dedicated to the DJ's. Other months, they would do themed shows based on the Holiday of that month (Halloween the last Friday before October 31, and Christmas on the last or 2nd-to-last Friday before Christmas). AND, twice a year, EC would do LIVE outdoor remote-broadcasts from different well-known sites in Canada. In February, on a Saturday night in mid- to late-February, they would broadcast a LIVE outdoor remote-broadcast from the Winterlude festival at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. And in late-July, EC would do a LIVE outdoor remote-cast from Paramount Canada's Wonderland in Maple, Ontario (just outside Toronto). In both of these live outdoor remote-casts, they would invite thousands of people to show up to these remotes and be in the audience, while they would have about 100 of the EC Dancers on 1 main stage, and 2 smaller platforms above the crowd dancing to the shows, and they would both feature several acts performing their Dance songs on-stage for the autiences both there at the site, and live to the audiences watching at home.

7) During EC, usually in the middle of the program, they would have well-known locan local, national, and world-renowned DJ's perform on the show, and they would perform a live mixset lasting up to 10 minutes...giving the viewers at home a chance to sample their music & musical-styles.

And finally, the best part of EC...

8) Electric Circus had a LIVE, on-air Chatline which ran 24/7, but during the show, they would have desktop or laptop computers set up in the EC Environment where some of the EC Dancers would chat LIVE with the online chatters watching at home, and the online chatters also would be able to chat it up with the host of the show, and sometimes they would have the performers on the show do live chats with the online chatters either during or immediately following the show! :) Of course, this chatroom WAS moderated, which was a MUST for anything like this to work. :)

Now that you know about Electric Circus, there was 2 hosts on that show which REALLY made the show click!!

When I started watching and participating on the show, the host of the show was American-born Juliette Powell. She spoke both fluent English & French, and she REALLY liked to party on the show!! :) Juliette hosted the show from September 1996 until September 2000.

The second one was Nadine Ramkisson!! She served as the host for EC on MuchMusic between September 2000 and August 2002. She brought an "international" flair to the show, since she was originally from Trinidad. And prior to Juliette leaving the show in 2000, she was the show's Dance Co-ordinator, and would take over hosting duties when Juliette had to be somewhere else on assignment. :)

This was, BAR-NONE, the BESTEST Dance Music TV show EVER!! :)

And I REALLY would like such a show to rise again, and I think such a show WOULD work on a network like The CW, Fox, or even NBC on a Friday or Saturday night during prime-time, and would be PERFECT to run LIVE for 90-minutes ever Friday or Saturday night!! :)

What do you think of such a show?

DeanSB

<P ID="signature">______________
Dance Music RULEZ!! :)</P>
 
Re: Here's a really COO-WIL IDEA for a new Dance Show to put on the new CW, Fox, or even NBC...

Thorough analysis i didn't read it all yet but yes it was a very cool show. They'd have people lined up outside and stuff. Image is so important, and this show made dance music seem mainstream.

I wonder if it still airs on MuchMusic/Canada. ?
 
Re: Here's a really COO-WIL IDEA for a new Dance Show to put on the new CW, Fox, or even NBC...

> Thorough analysis i didn't read it all yet but yes it was a
> very cool show. They'd have people lined up outside and
> stuff. Image is so important, and this show made dance
> music seem mainstream.
>
> I wonder if it still airs on MuchMusic/Canada. ?

It was cancelled by MuchMusic on December 12th, 2003.
 
Re: Here's a really COO-WIL IDEA for a new Dance Show to put on the new CW, Fox, or even NBC...

> > Thorough analysis i didn't read it all yet but yes it was
> a
> > very cool show. They'd have people lined up outside and
> > stuff. Image is so important, and this show made dance
> > music seem mainstream.
> >
> > I wonder if it still airs on MuchMusic/Canada. ?
>
> It was cancelled by MuchMusic on December 12th, 2003.


Correct.

MuchMusic cancelled it in December of 2003.

But the show was going downhill, ever since they let go of Nadine Ramkisson.

After she was let go, the show had (IMHO) lost its direction, and had several different hosts before finally being cancelled in December 2003.

EC was meant to have Dance Music on there. But when David Kines took over as head of programming for MuchMusic in 2001, the show slowly, but surely, shifted away from playing Dance Music, and started playing the exact same kind of regular music they played on other shows such as "The DownLo" and "MuchVibe".

This move was the WRONG move for EC to take. For those of us who were regulars on the EC Chatline, we felt that the music had shifted too much by 2001, and was slowly going downhill ever since.

But when Much let go of Nadine Ramkisson, all that move did was accelerate the show's downhill slide.

I would like to see another show like EC come back on the air, perhaps on The CW, Fox, or even NBC. EC would be a PERFECT show to broadcast LIVE from 30 Rockefeller Center in NYC on Friday nights. Just simply use the same studios and storefront environment used by "The Today Show", and have one of the windows open to the crowds outside, and have cameras outside and inside, where the people can dance around and REALLY be a part of the show!! :)

NBC could air the show LIVE in the Eastern, Central, and Mountain timezones, and perhaps make the live feed available online for the viewers in the Pacific timezone, and then repeat the program on NBC's west-coast affiliates at 9:30pm Pacific time.

What do you all think of this idea?

DeanSB<P ID="signature">______________
Dance Music RULEZ!! :)</P>
 
Re: Here's a really COO-WIL IDEA for a new Dance Show to put on the new CW, Fox, or even NBC...

>
> I would like to see another show like EC come back on the
> air, perhaps on The CW, Fox, or even NBC. EC would be a
> PERFECT show to broadcast LIVE from 30 Rockefeller Center in
> NYC on Friday nights. Just simply use the same studios and
> storefront environment used by "The Today Show", and have
> one of the windows open to the crowds outside, and have
> cameras outside and inside, where the people can dance
> around and REALLY be a part of the show!! :)
>
> NBC could air the show LIVE in the Eastern, Central, and
> Mountain timezones, and perhaps make the live feed available
> online for the viewers in the Pacific timezone, and then
> repeat the program on NBC's west-coast affiliates at 9:30pm
> Pacific time.
>
> What do you all think of this idea?
>
> DeanSB

Dean,

I remember "Electric Circus" VERY well! When I did my Toronto trips in the 90's, getting hooked on Energy 108 (CING - which I think of as the BEST implemented dance music radio station in North America...even Party 105.3, a station in Long Island I really like, can't hold a candle to this.) I would hang out at the MuchMusic studios outside of Queen Street W, just to take a peek. This was around 1992 when Monika Deol was the host. It was part of that and Energy 108 that influenced me to start up the Metro New York Dance Radio Coalition to get a radio station in NYC to play dance music. While I didn't note this directly on the newsletters I put out, I did want a dance music television show similar to "Electric Circus", but at that time the U.S. stations weren't getting "interactive with people" with their television programming. No doubt I would have wanted MTV to do this.

Having said that, MTV not only changed the face of music on television, it also helped DESTROY music television on the traditional networks. "American Bandstand" was a Saturday morning institution on ABC, with Dick Clark for the longest time, going back to the 50's. It still existed after MTV for those that didn't have cable but as cable grew, "American Bandstand" faded out. It ran on USA network in 1989 but pretty much died. "Friday Night Videos" aired back in the 80's on NBC as a response to MTV and for those that didn't have cable. For New York City, we had a show "New York Hot Tracks" with Carlos DeJesus (dj at the original WKTU) back in 1983. But as cable grew and more people yelled "I Want My MTV!", traditional outlets for the most part abandoned music on TV. It's actually amazing that "Soul Train" is still on after all these years. Then again, there still is a population of African-Americans that don't have cable so for that culture, this IS their "American Bandstand".

Even though "eMpTyV" doesn't play ANYTHING dance oriented (except for Madonna, and that's only because she helped generate the network to new heights so in effect they "owe her") they still have such an influence that regular networks still won't touch music (and that's any genre). Would I WANT to see a dance show like "Electric Circus" again?? HELL YEAH! But the only place it can possibly work out would be on cable. It's just a matter of strong arming the music channels like MTV and Fuse (the former MuchMusic USA) to do something. And since MTV is all about playing those shows and for the FEW videos they air...it's either hip-hop, r&b and alternative rock, the Fuse might be the only hope..and from what I see of their playlist it's a pretty slim hope. As far as The CW and other outlets are concerned....forget it.

For now, dance music has to gain more mainstream acceptance like it was back in the disco days and the late 80's/early 90's and with HD radio along with satellite, it is a good start. MAYBE THEN, will television execs recognize dance music shows as a ratings winner.

But for now, REGGAETON has the chance.

TONY SANTIAGO
 
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