Tuesday, April 30, 2002 | 8:29 a.m.
Backstage at The Rio's Samba Theatre Chelsea Thompson, a dancer in the topless review "Showgirls," was talking on camera about the lofty headdress she wears in the production. Decked in pink ostrich feathers and heavy stage makeup, she told of life as a Las Vegas showgirl.
"You have to have poise and presence and be a star onstage every night," Thompson said, fluttering her eyelashes and smiling. "You have to be a good dancer and keep in shape."
Unless Thompson and her comments drop to the editing-room floor, the barely clothed dancer is likely to appear on a Travel Channel show focusing on the adult entertainment scene in Las Vegas. The episode is scheduled to air in the fall.
The fact that this is one of 10 new episodes about Las Vegas being produced for Travel Channel (which is broadcast locally on Cox cable channel 66) should come as no surprise to viewers.
Any channel surfer has likely already noticed that the network, which spans the globe to feature popular tourist destinations, airs a multitude of programs about Las Vegas.
The channel's daytime and prime-time schedules often include profiles of the Strip and other area attractions. Sometimes as many as three Las Vegas-oriented shows air during one evening.
According to Mark Finkelpearl, director of production for Travel Channel, roughly 10 percent of the network's shows feature Southern Nevada hot spots. The shows offer looks at Las Vegas' architectural feats, its gaming attractions, wedding chapels and money-counting rooms.
Other shows include "Cooling Off in Vegas," featuring Lake Mead and Las Vegas water parks and pools, and "King of the Strip," an hourlong episode about billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his re-created Venice at The Venetian.
The Las Vegas episodes have brought the cable channel some of its highest ratings, Finkelpearl said.
That's especially true during "Vegas Week," an entire week of programming (such as one that aired in January) of prime-time slots dedicated to Las Vegas installments.
"It seems that our viewers have an insatiable appetite for the location," Finkelpearl said of Las Vegas. "People just love it."
Viewing Vegas
Alice Rao, spokeswoman for Travel Channel, said the channel doesn't release its ratings figures, nor will representatives say whether additional Las Vegas shows are being produced and have aired more often in recent years.
But according to Nielsen Media Research for 2000 through 2001, there were 12 telecasts with Las Vegas titles appearing on Travel Channel, compared to this season's listings of more than 250 shows.
A May 2000 article in Multichannel News, a publication that tracks cable-television news, reported the increasing the number of Las Vegas- themed shows was part of the plan of Steve Cheskin, Travel Channel's then-recently hired general manager.
Cheskin had intended to focus more on popular destinations that did better in ratings, such as Las Vegas and London, rather than exotic locations, the article reported.
Within a year Multichannel News reported Travel Channel generated its highest prime-time household ratings since February 1999, and payed partial credit to Las Vegas shows for the upward shift in ratings.
A show titled "Venice in Vegas," about The Venetian, was responsible for the network's highest household Nielsen rating for any Travel Channel show, the article stated.
The popularity of Las Vegas shows on Travel Channel comes as no surprise to Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture and director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University in New York.
The success of Las Vegas as a popular tourist destination, its rich history and increasing residential growth make for an intriguing topic, he said.
"(Las Vegas) has become, in so many ways, so central to the American heart," Thompson said, adding that Las Vegas' shift from a frontier town to a multithemed getaway furthers viewers' interest.
"Las Vegas has become this reduced, concentrated Planet Earth in this one metropolis," he said.
Because of Las Vegas' appeal, Thompson said, video clips of the Strip and Fremont Street on Travel Channel and other television shows has great potential to lure channel surfers.
"What these cable channels really need is the one program that brings viewers to know that they really exist," he said, speculating that the Las Vegas episodes might serve that purpose for the network.
Big business
Travel Channel reaches more than 60 million subscribers and targets viewers ages 25 to 54. Nielsen Media Research reports that the Las Vegas programs that have aired this season have averaged 116,000 viewers.
Rao said that viewers are evenly divided between men and women who have a greaterpropensity to travel than the average cable television viewer, and earn a median household income of $66,000.
Gina Cunningham, editor for the Las Vegas News Bureau, said that the the publicity generated from Las Vegas shows on Travel Channel is "huge" for the city.
Prior to working for the news bureau, Cunningham spent nine years in public relations at Bally's. Anytime Travel Channel featured Bally's in an episode, an increase in business usually followed.
"They did one segment on (former Bally's chairman) Arthur Goldberg and immediately the calls were coming in," Cunningham said. "Business picked up in the casino. Business picked up everywhere in the hotel."
When it comes to exposure, Greg Thompson, producer of "Showgirls" at The Rio, as well as "Skintight" at Harrah's and nearly 800 production shows throughout the world, said, "There's nothing like television.
"When Travel Channel and 'Inside Edition' did shows (about 'Skintight') we saw a real bump in our business for 'Skintight,' " Greg Thompson said.
According to Finkelpearl, determining which hotels, shows and other attractions to feature in a Travel Channel episode is often based on ideas generated by the production companies that are commissioned to produce the shows.
And producers are rarely short on ideas.
Paul Abeyta, executive producer with RC Entertainment, the Los Angeles company producing the 10 new shows for Travel Channel to air in the next year, said, "There's so much to shoot here -- so many different stories, so many different angles."
Some viewers and critics, however, have grown weary of the Las Vegas shows, and complain Travel Channel has become a commercial of sorts for the city.
Preston Turegano, television and radio writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune, wrote in an August column that one Las Vegas episode on Travel Channel "amounted to an infomerical for The Venetian."
Robert Thompson, who said he finds the Las Vegas shows interesting and informative, also jokingly referred to Travel Channel as the "Vegas Channel."
Finkelpearl said that he's not aware of any complaints, and contends Travel Channel has not become the "Vegas Channel."
"A lot of what we're trying to do is take a popular destination like Las Vegas and do a hidden-world look -- what you don't get to see," Finkelpearl said.
"There are some great stories in the high-end cuisine that is moving from Los Angeles and New York to Las Vegas," he said. "Wolfgang Puck. Emeril Lagasse. Gambling also is compelling to a big degree to our audience.
"It's a city that's constantly evolving and growing. It's a constant work in progress. That's what makes it compelling."
archive
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy