What was barry's first reaction to hearing the beatles, "i wanna hold your hand"? what initially prompted him to play their musi
c on his radio show? 2. what role did television play in the beatles success? 3. explain why barry turned down the offer to mc the beatles concert that was scheduled for milwaukee. 4. in what ways were the beatles controversial? 5. describe what it was like for nick topping when he booked the beatles in milwaukee. 6. explain what people recall happened when the beatles took the stage during the milwaukee concert. 7. looking back, why do people believe the beatles were such a massive success in the united states, changing pop music forever?
Whoa, that's a lot of Beatles questions all at once! Allow me to pick just one for a response here. "What role did television play in the Beatles' success?"
Television allowed the Beatles to reach a mass audience across America. The Ed Sullivan Show had a huge audience in the United States at that time. Back in the 1960s, the only television was network broadcast television. There were no cable channels. No Netflix. No Hulu. No Amazon Prime. No Youtube. So if you made an appearance on a major network show like The Ed Sullivan Show, you were reaching all TV viewers in America. When the Beatles made their first appearance on American television, on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, they were seen by an estimated 73 million American viewers. That's a huge audience. Not quite Super Bowl numbers (which reach around 100 million), but still huge. For comparison, the most-watched episode of a hit cable program like The Walking Dead (its season 7 premiere) got 17 million viewers.
So, for sure, the dynamics of television in the 1960s helped the Beatles become an enormous success in the American entertainment market.
