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O-Town: Building the Perfect Boy Band
An unapologetically prefab fivesome culled from 1,800 hopefuls on an
ABC reality show is the most cunningly marketed, cross-platformed boy
band ever. Can the efforts of Clive Davis, teen-pop impresario Lou
Pearlman and radio giant Clear Channel create the new 'N Sync? Band
debuts at #5 on this week's charts.
by Warren Cohen

Wednesday, January 31, 2001 12:33 p.m.

When Sara Trombley gave her lawyerly, 30-second testimonial in the
earth-shaped dining room at Orlando's Planet Hollywood last month, it
was the end of a 2,947.6-mile journey. That's how far the 18-year-old
college freshman said she had traveled to see her new fave boy band,
O-Town, perform in various locations across the southeastern United
States, demonstrating to one and all that she is their biggest fan.
As proof, she unfurled before the five members of O-Town (who were
splayed on bar stools judging the proceedings) a six-foot poster
showing pictures of her at each concert stop.
The corporate-sponsored ''Making the Fan'' contest is a logical
extension of ABC's fall 2000 reality show, Making the Band, which
turned five boys into the pinups of O-Town. More than 70 other
screaming hopefuls stood on tiptoes behind Trombley, waiting to give
their own vows of devotion under the spotlights; the fans whose
devotion is purest will fly to the Bahamas to witness an exclusive
performance by the band.

But this was a lovefest with a purpose. The fans' testimonials were
filmed for promotional use; they could potentially turn up on TV,
radio and the Net, fodder for an all-out campaign launched by the
backers -- including businessman/boy-band mogul Lou Pearlman, ABC,
Clive Davis's newly-launched J Records and Making the Band creators
MTV Productions -- who've invested nearly $2 million in O-Town's
future.

On the TV show, fans watched the producers whittle 1,800 O-Town
wannabes down to a creme-de-la-cute fivesome. They've watched them
learn to dance, sing and groom themselves. Meanwhile, behind the
scenes, record-biz legend Davis, his new label J Records and radio
giant Clear Channel Communications joined the band's pit crew. The O-
Town offensive has become one of the most elaborate star-making
campaigns of the modern media age. The machinery seems to have paid
off. In its first week of release, according to SoundScan, O-Town's
self-titled debut CD sold 144,000 copies, bowing at No. 5 on the
charts. (It's part of a new teen pop wave: Rival girl band Dream,
svengalied by Puffy Combs, followed at No. 6 with 105,000 records
sold.)

The band's first single, ''Liquid Dreams,'' a catchy but odd tribute
to the oft-mortifying experience of a boy's nighttime emissions, is
bubbling under the Top 40, boosted by a $500,000 video full of gee-
whiz effects. Joshua Thompson, who has written songs for Joe,
Babyface and Usher, led the team of veterans who composed the tune.
For the group's many investors, all of whom hope to see handsome
returns when the band ascends to mega-stardom, this spare-no-expense
approach is a must. But beyond their financial interest in the group,
each business partner has a lot riding on making the operation fly.

For Davis, O-Town, his label's first release, is a chance to show the
gossipy record industry that he's still got the golden ear. In 1974,
he started Arista with $10 million and built it into a company that
had annual revenues of more than $500 million. In 1999, he engineered
Carlos Santana's comeback with Supernatural, which has sold 22
million records worldwide. But despite his continuing success,
executives at Arista's corporate parent, BMG Entertainment, demanded
last year that the 67-year-old impresario draw up a succession plan
for his eventual retirement. Davis refused, setting off a yearlong
corporate standoff. Finally a truce was negotiated: Davis would give
up his slot at Arista in return for partial funding of a new BMG-
associated label called J, after his middle initial.

POWERFUL PARTNERS
But don't call it a comeback. According to Davis, J's sizable start-
up capital means that it's an instant major label. Having brought 80
percent of his former staff with him from Arista, Davis has his old
team in place and, in addition to newcomers like O-Town, he's signed
platinum-certified acts like Luther Vandross and Busta Rhymes. While
his new venture will be closely watched, Davis says he has nothing to
prove. ''I don't feel any special pressure now,'' he says. ''There's
always pressure in this business.''

Davis learned about O-Town through the band's manager, Mike Cronin,
who is the brother of the lead singer of LFO, a boy band Davis signed
at Arista. Davis was aware of Making the Band, as were executives at
Jive and RCA, but insists that the allure of a prefab audience didn't
influence his decision. ''The recognition factor and awareness of a
TV show is helpful,'' says Davis. ''But the formula is pure and
simple: You need a major hit record to launch a group.''

And if you want a hit record, you need big-time radio play. That's
why J's first marketing deal after signing O-Town was a deep
promotional partnership with Clear Channel Communications. The San
Antonio-headquartered radio behemoth may get less attention than your
average Hollywood studio or TV network, but since 1996 -- when
Congress lifted caps on the number of radio stations one company
could own -- Clear Channel has been on a buying spree of
unprecedented proportions, expanding its empire (from 625 stations in
1999 to about 1,100 stations today) and acquiring concert promotions
giant SFX Entertainment. The company owns roughly five times the
number of stations as its main rival, Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting.
More importantly, particularly for O-Town, Clear Channel dominates
pop radio, controlling 115 of the country's 483 Top 40/contemporary-
hits formatted stations, according to BIA Financial Network, a
broadcast industry research firm.

Under the terms of the partnership, J Records will foot the bill for
trips to a concert in the Bahamas for listeners from 25 Clear Channel
stations around the country. J has also bought radio commercials for
the album in eight of Clear Channel's largest markets and ensures
that about 50 DJs around the country rattle off roughly 20 on-air and
recorded announcements about the album's arrival. Financial terms are
private, but Tom Corson, J's executive vice president of worldwide
marketing and sales, says the promotion's cost is reduced because J
offers O-Town's services to Clear Channel for promotional events;
recently, the group has been crisscrossing the country to appear
at ''Making the Fan'' challenges (hosted by Clear Channel DJs) in New
York, Orlando, Minneapolis and Los Angeles.

''Clear Channel has a list of assets they bring to on-air
promotions,'' says J's Corson. ''But there's so much mutual benefit
for each party that we scratch their back and they scratch ours. It's
symbiotic.'' Other music industry veterans are impressed by the
deal's scope. ''When you have a partner like Clear Channel, it is an
immense help to break the act,'' says Jerry Brenner, a Boston-area
music promoter.

But O-Town's main benefit to Clear Channel is on the Net, where Clear
Channel radio station Web sites are in serious need of traffic. Thus
far, the Web has been a weak area for traditional radio. Despite the
runaway popularity of Web-only music sites, most radio groups have
either failed to trumpet their Web sites or neglected to offer any
compelling features beyond rebroadcast signals. On PC Data's list of
the Web's most popular music properties, the top-ranked radio Web
site is New York pop powerhouse (and Clear Channel affiliate)
Z100.com, which comes in 61st. This year, Clear Channel has vowed to
make its Web sites a corporate priority. That way, it can offer
companies advertising space on radio, the Web, billboards (another
business Clear Channel dominates) and at concert venues, giving their
ads both the demographic-precise targeting of radio and the massive
reach of network TV. ''We can bring events like U2 concerts, Michael
Jordan golf tournaments and tractor pulls to our audience with our
content partners,'' says Ted Utz, vice president of strategic
partnerships at Clear Channel's Internet Group. ''When you compare
the Clear Channel Internet group to AOL, we're going to have a
similar platform with the power of our combined Web sites.''

O-Town will be a test case for Clear Channel's budding Web strategy.
Half of Clear Channel's pop-station sites streamed the album the
weekend before its release; when the album finally hit the street,
these sites featured a webcast of the band's record release party,
jazzed up with interactive technology that let users control the
camera angles from their home PCs. And on Feb. 9, the sites will host
a live chat with the band. In short, it's a full-court Web press,
designed to transform online radio into an experience closer to
concerts or live TV.

LOU'S LAST STAND
Both parties stress that all the cross-promotional frenzy doesn't
guarantee that Clear Channel strongholds such as Z100 or LA's KIIS-FM
will actually play ''Liquid Dreams.'' Theoretically, there's a church-
and-state separation between the marketing and programming
departments at radio stations. Prior to launching a promotion, Clear
Channel's marketing team solicits feedback from its stations, then
allows individual stations to opt in depending on whether they like
the music. This prescreening is an early tell of whether the song
will get a fair shake from DJs and program directors. J Records
certainly thinks it will. ''Paying for play is illegal and they can't
commit to anything about adding spins,'' says Matt Shay, J's director
of new media. ''But we feel like it's a cool promotion to radio, and
spins come naturally to a cool promotion.''

ABC will also be watching the charts closely. Last season, Making the
Band averaged 6.7 million viewers a week in its Friday time slot --
disappointing numbers, given that its lead-in, Sabrina the Teenage
Witch, averaged about 9 million a week. Although ABC has optioned 13
more episodes, it has yet to add the show to its 2001 schedule. A hit
record could give the network reason to do so.

But there may be no one who has more riding on O-Town than Pearlman,
the controversial idolmaker behind the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync.
While he insists that there's not a shakeout on the horizon in boy-
band-land -- ''As long as God keeps making little girls, there will
be boy bands,'' he says -- some critics believe the wave is cresting.
Pearlman is optimistic that O-Town will be his next big success --
and not his last. He has a few more groups at his finishing school in
Orlando, where he feeds and clothes his charges and hooks them up
with vocal and dancing coaches.

But O-Town's success, even after a stellar first week, is far from a
sure thing. Megahit records have always depended on an unscripted
alchemy rather than marketing muscle. The intro to the ABC show
promises viewers that O-Town ''will become stars.'' But there's no
guarantee that an ingeniously-marketed, cross-synergized, multi-
platformed quintet of hotties will slay teen America. That requires
one unscriptable element: actual fans.