What you may not know is that those Tony performances cost money. A LOT of money. A performance by a big musical can easily cost $200k - $300k. The cast members get a week’s salary (up to a cap), new sets and props have to be built (we had to build an entire new set of desks for Millie’s “Forget About The Boy” appearance in 2002), there are dresser costs, recording session expenses (the ensembles are tracked, the principals are live), transportation costs, stagehands costs, and so on. It adds up!

You’re probably saying, “The ratings are so low, we’re lucky we even get a show.”  It’s true, sort of.  Thank God for CBS’s commitment to The Tonys, but they’re not doing this for charity or because a CEO somewhere was smitten by a performance of Shenandoah when he was 7.  I was once told by an insider that while the numbers of viewers aren’t exceptionally high, the TYPE of viewer that watches the Tonys is why CBS does the show year after year.  The Tonys, as you can imagine, attract a very concentrated group of highly educated, more affluent consumers, which means they can charge top dollar to top brands.

While the first part is surprising, the second part is not. You can tell in about two seconds of watching, knee deep in your third luxury car commercial exactly who CBS is selling airtime to and why.