And BTS' fans, who call themselves the BTS Army, came through big-time and ended up donating generously to the NPR-affiliated PBS, Public Broadcasting Stations that aired the laid-back, intimate concert.
Public radio stations are independent operations and there’s no central database of donations, says NPR spokesperson Isabel Lara, who notes that the concert now has more than 6 million views online, and NPR Music got 100,000 new subscribers to its YouTube channel since Monday morning. The Tiny Desk concert broke the viewership record in just 25 minutes.
One doesn't usually associate K-Pop with PBS or NPR, which skew towards an oldr demographic, but the nonprofit media might reconsider their audience with the success of the BTS appearance.
BTS had intended to spend 2020 selling out arenas around the world, only to spend these last few months performing in isolation in their hometown of Seoul. It took a global pandemic to get on the group's schedule.
Billie Eilish previously held the first-day Tiny Desk record for views, with 782,000 on the first day of her session. BTS had 700,000 views in the first 15 minutes the mini-concert was online, and more than 950,000 by end of the session, NPR’s Anais Laurent says.
Without their coordinated clothing and noted choreography, the Korean band dressed casually, seated in a row for their session, taped at the Vinyl & Plastic by Hyundai Card record store in Seoul. It was is also the first occasion on which the group performed its No. 1 hit, an upbeat, funky “Dynamite,” its first all-English recording with a live band. A couple of them couldn't sit still and had to get up and dance.
From there they went into a more mellow, ballad mode, with "Save ME," from 2016.
“It’s been the roughest summer ever,” BTS’s RM says in the session, “but we know that spring will come” before moving into another of their hits, “Spring Day.”
Without their coordinated clothing and noted choreography, the Korean band dressed casually, seated in a row for their session, taped at the Vinyl & Plastic by Hyundai Card record store in Seoul. It was is also the first occasion on which the group performed its No. 1 hit, an upbeat, funky “Dynamite,” its first all-English recording with a live band. A couple of them couldn't sit still and had to get up and dance.
From there they went into a more mellow, ballad mode, with "Save ME," from 2016.
“It’s been the roughest summer ever,” BTS’s RM says in the session, “but we know that spring will come” before moving into another of their hits, “Spring Day.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: For those who might have missed the performance on Monday, enjoy:
Anecdotally, Lara says, people—many of them for the first time—definitely seem to be donating to say thanks for the concert, something they've been missing in these pandemic times.
Gabe Rosenberg, the digital news editor for Columbus, Ohio, NPR affiliate WOSU, encouraged the BTS Army to donate to public radio stations to say thanks.
Rosenberg’s social media quickly filled with responses from BTS fans saying they’d done exactly that, a phonomenon also experienced by other NPR affiliates such as the San Francisco-based KQED.
“My TweetDeck was relatively unusable for most of the day.” Rosenberg says the surge of contributions is especially welcome during an extremely trying time for local journalism. “One Tiny Desk concert can’t really reverse the effects of a pandemic on a local newsroom’s budget, but it does something to make you a little optimistic about why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
The donations are not new to the BTS Army. When BTS donated $1 milllion to Black Lives Matter, in 24 hours, the Army matched the donation. At every concert venue, the group donates a portion of their earnings to a local charity.
Gabe Rosenberg, the digital news editor for Columbus, Ohio, NPR affiliate WOSU, encouraged the BTS Army to donate to public radio stations to say thanks.
Rosenberg’s social media quickly filled with responses from BTS fans saying they’d done exactly that, a phonomenon also experienced by other NPR affiliates such as the San Francisco-based KQED.
“My TweetDeck was relatively unusable for most of the day.” Rosenberg says the surge of contributions is especially welcome during an extremely trying time for local journalism. “One Tiny Desk concert can’t really reverse the effects of a pandemic on a local newsroom’s budget, but it does something to make you a little optimistic about why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
The donations are not new to the BTS Army. When BTS donated $1 milllion to Black Lives Matter, in 24 hours, the Army matched the donation. At every concert venue, the group donates a portion of their earnings to a local charity.
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