A follow-up on my post yesterday about tickets to TV shows. First of all, yes, I know I typed Late Night with David Letterman when his CBS show is called Late Show with David Letterman. I have corrected this. In my defense, let me point out this is a pretty common mistake…and hey, week before last, Dave accidentally closed his show by telling everyone to stay tuned for Craig Kilborn.
As several correspondents noted, the services offering tickets to see your favorite TV show may not actually have tickets to that show. There are shows out there that have no trouble filling the house with folks who apply the old-fashioned way. One person who's an Associate Producer on a popular situation comedy wrote me…
Usually, we can distribute all our tickets via requests from people who write in or use a link on the network's website. We actually fill about a third of our seats with requests from friends who work on the show or who know someone at the studio or network. Each taping, we turn away at least 20 people who show up with tickets because we fill the place. However, we do have a relationship with an audience wrangler. Every so often, there's an inexplicable hole. I think it only happened once last season but we had to call the wrangler and say "Get us 30 people for this Friday!"
We've also had weeks when the audience seemed very old and unenthusiastic. We didn't do it but the producers did discuss calling the wrangler and telling him to get 20-30 young, hopped-up kids for the front rows. There are also weeks when it looks like it's going to rain hard on tape day and we consider calling the wrangler and having them get us another 20 or 30 people, just in case. We don't technically need the wrangler but it's good to have that available to us.
A couple of folks wrote me to say that the Enquirer recently claimed that the producers of Craig Ferguson's show sometimes spend $40 (not $25) per audience member. It's not clear how much of their audience doesn't just write in and get tickets without costing the show anything. It's also not clear how often all or some of that money goes to the people in the seats. Whatever is paid might just be pocketed by the service that gets the people there. One person wrote me that a club to which they belong attended a Ferguson taping as a charity effort. That is, X number of them went to the show and then there was a donation of a certain sum of money for that.
One other point about paid audiences. Some TV tapings can run a long time or get very boring with delays. Some producers like having paid audiences there because paid audiences are less likely to walk out. In my day, I did some variety shows that had long, long tapings…to the point where we occasionally had to book two audiences for one evening of taping — a 6 PM audience and a 9 PM audience — and it wasn't a matter of doing the same material for each. That Deal or No Deal taping my friend Len and I attended in '06 ran more than five hours. People did leave before it was over and many who stayed only stayed because prizes were being given out. I suspect some stayed because they'd be getting money for staying. That's not the case with Ferguson since their tapings go swiftly…but they are operating in a system where producers do sometimes pay for audiences.
If you want to see any TV show in person, it's usually not difficult if you send away well in advance. Writing to the show or applying via its official website will usually get you there. If you want to go at the last minute, one of these services might help you with some programs. I suspect their greatest value to producers is for pilots and shows that aren't on the air yet and therefore have no one requesting tickets. But they probably can get you in to see Wheel of Fortune as easily as going through normal channels and — who knows? — you might even be able to make a couple of bucks going to see it. Maybe they'll even let you use that money on your way out to buy a vowel or something. Me, I'd spend it all on an "E."