Live Earth was DOA

Were you watching the LIVE EARTH concerts this weekend? No? Apparently lots of people had more important things to do Saturday. While exact figures are not yet available, it looks like somewhere around 100 million people saw at least portion of a concert on the web, TV, or live. Those aren't shabby viewing figures, but much less than the 2 billions viewers claimed by SOS, the sponsoring organization.

The LiveEarth website claims a lofty goal:

Live Earth marks the beginning of a multi-year campaign led by the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group and other international organizations to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve global warming. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance and Partner of Live Earth.

While it sounds like the actual goal is socialism, it seems clear that the success or failure of the concerts doesn't hinge on the number of viewers - it relies on what actions viewers will take now that they've been enlightened by music, socialist performers, and heavy use of the "f" word.

Live Earth has been branded a foul-mouthed flop.

Organisers of the global music concert - punctuated by swearing from presenters and performers - had predicted massive viewing figures.

But BBC's live afternoon television coverage attracted an average British audience of just 900,000.

In the evening, when coverage switched from BBC2 to BBC1, the figure rose to just 2.7 million.

And the peak audience, which came when Madonna sang at Wembley, was a dismal 4.5 million. Three times as many viewers saw the Princess Diana tribute on the same channel six days before.

Two years ago, Live 8 drew a peak television audience of 9.6million while Live Aid notched 10million in 1985.

The BBC blamed the poor figures on Saturday's good weather and said its Wimbledon tennis coverage had drawn away afternoon viewers.

Critics said however that the public had simply snubbed what they saw as a hypocritical event.

Musicians including Bob Geldof, Roger Daltrey and the Pet Shop Boys pointed out that a concert highlighting climate change had itself generated huge carbon emissions.

Performers were criticised for flying to concerts that were staged simultaneously on seven continents.

The BBC's coverage, which ran for 15 hours from 12.30pm on Saturday to 4am yesterday, also sparked dozens of complaints about bad language.

The swearing started at 1.30pm when Phil Collins, the first act on in London, used the f-word while singing with his band Genesis.

Razorlight singer Johnny Borrell used the same expletive a few minutes later in one of his songs. And Chris Rock swore while introducing fellow comic Ricky Gervais, who soon followed suit.

[...]

A BBC spokesman said: "We asked artists not to swear but sometimes they get carried away. We are very sorry for any offence caused."

And, as Patrick over at Born Again Redneck Yogi posted, the South Africa concert didn't draw a crowd:

Officials at LIVE EARTH Johannesburg have blamed the effects of climate change for poor audience attendance at Saturday's (07Jul07) South African event. Organiser John Langford believes extremely cold weather in the region - it snowed last week (ends06Jul07) for the first time in a quarter of a century - kept people away from the concert...

Of course, those evil capitalists had to get their hands into this green event, really ticking off Greenpeace - and rightly so. For a concert sponsored by a bunch of socialists, I can't imagine anything worse than a global corporation using this concert to make money off of their pseudo-green automobile. And to pour salt on the wound, Daimler now has, by virtue of association with this event, a big, green "get out of jail free" card when the green community protests automobiles, auto companies, and manufacturing in general.

Environmental pressure group Greenpeace is up in arms over the fact that auto giant DaimlerChrysler is the main sponsor for the Live Earth concert taking place in Germany on Saturday.

The concerts themselves are supposed to highlight the sorry state of the planet and the increasing damage that the human race is doing to the environment. But the Live Earth shows which will take place around the world this Saturday are under fire due to the German event being sponsored by a major automotive company.

Environmental pressure group Greenpeace is livid that the Live Earth concert in Hamburg will be broadcast to the world with the name of DaimlerChrysler splashed all over it. The fact that Daimler manufactures large, pollution-spewing automobiles, Greenpeace claims, means that a more inappropriate sponsor than the car giant would be hard to find.

Greenpeace are also angry that the company's Smart car is the official vehicle of the Live Earth artists and models are being used at the Hamburg gig to ferry stars such as Colombian singer Shakira around. The environmentalists claim that the car isn't even environmentally friendly as it can only carry two people.