We're thinking good thoughts this evening for Dick Clark, who earlier this week, suffered what is being described as a "mild stroke." I worked for Dick on a few occasions and apart from his well-known aversion to paying high salaries, I liked him tremendously.
I can't help think about a problem that Dick's crew and his network may be discussing at the moment. As everyone knows, a fixture of every December 31/January 1 transition is the annual Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve special, with Dick reporting from a rooftop in Times Square. What some folks may not know is that the rest of the show — everything except Dick's live cut-ins — is recorded some time before. It's tough to book top musical acts on New Year's Eve, especially for the kind of money Dick Clark Productions tends to offer.
I dunno when they did this year's but back when I worked for Dick, the music portions were all taped in October with the hosts saying, "And now, let's go to Dick Clark in Times Square!" This year, the broadcast takes the form of two programs — one before and one after your local 11:30 newscast — for a total of three hours and thirty minutes. One suspects they've taped all the music and a lot of footage that mentions cutting to Dick in New York. One also suspects that even if Mr. Clark makes a rapid recovery, it would not be a good idea for him to fly to New York, battle New Year's Eve crowds and spend several hours atop a building in what may be pretty cold weather. So someone is at the very least thinking about an alternate Times Square correspondent and figuring out how they can re-edit what is already taped to accommodate a change. Dick might still pull himself together in time, but they're probably scrambling to pull together a Plan B. Just in case.