LIVE AID: GOOD DEEDS, DEALS

It’s inevitable that some call the July 13 Live Aid rock concerts “an electronic Woodstock.” In a way it is, with 10 TV and four audio satellites involved in the concerts’ global broadcast. There is even talk of beaming it into the Soviet Union and China.

Unlike the muddy festival of “peace and love” that was Woodstock, Live Aid is a tale of two cities promising the best of times for millions of rock fans in a spectacular effort to alleviate the worst of times for millions of starving Africans.

At least 58 of the rock world’s top acts will be performing at London’s Wembley Stadium and at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, says a spokeswoman for Worldwide Sports and Entertainment, a Marina del Rey-based company that is producing and marketing the show.

The concerts--to include performances by rock acts in Australia--will be beamed live by satellite to at least 100 nations, Worldwide says. ABC, ABC Radio, MTV and an ad-hoc network of independent TV stations will carry Live Aid’s megabenefit in the United States.

The idea is to focus attention on hunger in Africa and raise millions for famine relief there. However, the concert broadcasts, at least in the United States, won’t be a telethon in the strict sense.

And they will include advertising, making the broadcasts a side-by-side mix of good deeds and commerce, although MTV says it won’t be making any money from its coverage.

The lineup of stars donating their time includes David Bowie and Mick Jagger who, high-tech permitting, will perform history’s first live-by-satellite duet--with Bowie singing in London and Jagger in Philadelphia.

Also on the bill: Julian Lennon; Madonna; Tina Turner; Elton John; Duran Duran; Bob Dylan; Paul McCartney; Black Sabbath; Judas Priest, and a few veterans of the celebrated Woodstock love-in of 1969--the Who, Neil Young, and Crosby, Stills and Nash.

The concerts are the third major effort in a year to use the clout of rock music stars to fight hunger in Africa. The first was last year’s Band Aid recording project in London, organized by British rocker Bob Geldof.

That inspired the Hollywood-based USA for Africa and its bid to raise $50 million, propelled by its chart-busting, 45-star hit, “We Are the World.”

Live Aid, which has the same goal of African famine relief isn’t part of the USA for Africa operation, according to Michael C. Mitchell, a top executive of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and now president of Worldwide.

A tall, rangy 39-year-old Oregon native who is serving as executive producer of the Live Aid concerts and global broadcasts, Mitchell says he hopes the effort will net $50 million from all sources to aid the hungry of 12 African nations, including Ethiopia.

He emphasizes that the Live Aid “message is just as important as the money that’s brought in.” He says that message, which will be broadcast during the concerts and delivered by a variety of world figures, is that “hunger can be overcome.”

He concedes that many seriously doubt that proposition and maintain that world hunger is “too immense” to be overcome. But, adds Mitchell, “we’ve put together a lot of work to prove otherwise, to show that you, as an individual, can make a difference.”

He takes pains to credit Britain’s Geldof as the driving force behind Live Aid: “He really created the show in the sense of personally contacting a majority of the acts and getting them involved.”

Mitchell says the lead-off concert in London is scheduled to start at noon there July 13 and last 10 hours. It will overlap with the Philadelphia concert, scheduled to start at 9 a.m. and end at 11 p.m. there.

In the United States, the show, live and taped, will be aired by ABC-TV for three prime-time hours, ending at 11 p.m. EDT (ABC’s West Coast outlets, including KABC-TV in Los Angeles, only will get the broadcast on tape because of the time difference).

That evening, coverage will be preceded by earlier hours of the concert aired by at least 100 independent TV stations, according to a spokeswoman for Orbis Communications in New York, which is syndicating those portions of the concerts to independent stations.

Those stations include KTLA in Los Angeles, whose live coverage, from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m. (PDT), will be followed by a taped rerun of the best hour of the London show, a spokesman says. All of it, he says, will be in stereo.

The concerts also will be carried live by three youth-market ABC radio networks, and by New York-based MTV, the rock video cable network that last March premiered USA for Africa’s “We Are the World” video. MTV has the Live Aid show scheduled for 17 hours, longer if need be. “We’re prepared to go the full distance, whatever that entails,” says spokeswoman Sue Binford.

Hal Uplinger, executive vice president of Worldwide Sports and Entertainment, says appeals for funds will be made during broadcasts of the concerts in the United States and at least 11 foreign countries, among them Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Britain.

There won’t be appeals for funds during ABC’s portion of the U.S. broadcasts, however. The fund-raising part of the Live Aid show, complete with toll-free numbers for viewers to call in pledges of money, only will be carried by MTV and the independent stations.

ABC says it won’t include the fund appeals because of its long-standing policy against airing direct solicitations for money. Instead, a network spokesman says, ABC is trying to get a Live Aid mailing address from organizers of the concerts.

Once that is in hand, he says, ABC would periodically televise that address during its three-hour broadcast and announce it on its radio broadcasts. The audience could then write for more information and later donate money to Live Aid if desired.

Live

That the Live Aid broadcasts will include commercials doubtless will raise eyebrows among fund-raising traditionalists. But Mitchell says he has no objections to broadcasters earning money from the show.

“We want them (broadcasters) to do their thing,” he says. “That’s part of it. They’re not mutually exclusive, the idea that if you’re going to help people you can’t make money.”

ABC-TV, whose broadcast will be hosted from Philadelphia by Dick Clark and be called “Live Aid--An All-Star Concert for Hunger Relief,” will air 21 commercials at the rate of seven an hour, a network spokesman says.

He declined to say how much money each commercial will bring in, citing company policy against disclosing such information for any broadcast. He says the 21 ads are the usual amount aired by ABC in prime time on Saturday nights.

In addition to those commercials, for products like Coca-Cola, Miller Lite, General Electric, Kodak and Honda, ABC’s 207 affiliates and the five TV stations ABC owns also are getting five minutes of their own to sell, according to the spokesman.

Independent TV stations, according to Orbis Communications, are getting the show on what is known as a “barter basis.”

Orbis spokeswoman Ronnie Faust says each station will get six minutes an hour to sell in exchange for giving Live Aid six minutes for the group’s messages on world hunger and appeals to the public.

KTLA’s spokesman says that while his station will air Live Aid’s taped appeals for funds, it doesn’t regard its broadcast of the event as a telethon, nor will it advertise the rock marathon as such. “It’s definitely a commercial venture,” he says.

Mitchell says corporate sponsorship of the concerts will bring in “several million dollars,” with an equal amount coming from broadcast rights (he declined to say how much ABC is paying for the concerts, other than that it is “a multi-million-dollar package”).

Another major source of income: receipts from the already sold-out London and Philadelphia concerts. Mitchell estimates that as about $5.5 million total. The largest amount, he added, will come primarily from U.S. fund appeals.

Income from all sources could range from $25 million “on the low side to $50 million on the high side,” he said.

Were the Live Aid concerts purely a commercial venture, not an effort to fight famine in Africa, they probably would cost $25 million to get staged and on the air, Mitchell say.

To keep costs at a minimum, he says, “we have gone all out and attempted to get everything donated, get people to donate their time, their equipment, whatever.” He estimates that the overall cost of the Live Aid mega-show could be $3.5 million.

“So the rights fees alone for television will more than pay for that,” he said. “Every cent that’s raised by the public will go for Africa.”