U.k. Experiences 'burns Effect' On Jazz Sales

The U.K. jazz market got the sales boost it expected from the screening of Ken Burns' Jazz documentary on British TV this summer. And Sony and Universal, which had set up a joint marketing campaign to coincide with the series, reaped the major benefits.

Both companies produced 11 Burns-branded albums, while Universal's Verve label also released a five-CD boxed set and a various-artists compilation.

According to Adam Sieff, Sony Music Entertainment's director of jazz for the U.K. and Europe, the project was a great success. "It wasn't about creating a new market for buying jazz, but about reaching people who knew the music and reviving their interest," he says. "The secret was to let people know what the music is and to signpost it for them. And all the indications are that it has done well across the board."

The Burns documentary was screened by national public broadcaster BBC2 in 14 episodes over three weeks in June. Despite the complex programming schedule, which involved prime-time Saturday-night slots and late-night weekday programs, audience figures remained consistent, at around 750,000 throughout the series.

"It was a magnificent series, and the viewing figures were what we would expect for a program of this type. They were not affected by the different time slots," said a BBC spokesperson, who explained that the programming schedule had been designed to avoid clashes with major sporting events that were being screened on other channels.

At retail, the impact of Burns' documentary was immediate. HMV specialties manager Rudy Osorio says it was possible to monitor the progress of the series via the sales patterns. "The sales boost for the early jazz artists coincided with the first week of the series," he says. "Ken Burns worked—and it was backed up by a really good campaign. I'm really pleased with the lift in sales. Jazz is up year-on-year for us anyway, but the June figures were up 84% over May."

The top-selling Burns-branded albums were by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker, according to Osorio. "But it wasn't just the branded releases. Other labels also picked up, including HMV's own jazz label."

But at BMG, international catalog exploitation manager John Cronin said there had not been any noticeable uplift for the label's Armstrong and Duke Ellington catalog. "The series was good, but the programs were scheduled all over the place. I felt it was a bit messy."

Yet Sony's Sieff argues that the Jazz series lived up to expectations. "There has been nothing of this quality on TV before, and it was particularly gratifying to see this music on a major TV channel. Getting Ken Burns over for interviews was also a major benefit in creating awareness of the series." He adds that Sony has sold 75,000 jazz catalog items in the past four months.

At Universal Jazz, press/campaign coordinator Julie Allison confirms the impact of the series, revealing that catalog sales have increased by 35%. And she agrees that Burns' two-day visit provided a major publicity boost for the series. "We could have done a week's worth of interviews—such was the interest," she says. "What was interesting was that the preview features generally tried to fuel controversy about the series, while the television critics who actually watched it wrote glowing reviews."

The Jazz series followed commemorations of the 10th anniversary of Miles Davis' death in April, which included two TV tributes. Davis' legendary Kind of Blue made a brief appearance in the U.K. album charts in May, and a Sony compilation advertised on TV has sold a "respectable" 25,000 copies so far, according to Sony's director of concept marketing Kit Buckler.

"We picked our TV spots carefully around news programs and documentaries and presented the album with authority, even though it was aimed at first-time buyers," says Buckler, who expects the album to continue selling through the summer.