Surreality TV Triumphs: ‘Osbournes’ Is Renewed

At Ozzy Inc., opportunity keeps pounding on the crucifix-covered door. Ozzy Osbourne, the aging British rocker notorious for once biting the head off a bat onstage, agreed Wednesday to open his Beverly Hills mansion for 20 more episodes of the hit MTV series “The Osbournes.”

After only 10 installments this year, it has become a bona fide cultural sensation: MTV’s top-rated series ever and the most watched new entertainment show on cable.

Osbourne plays himself, a 54-year-old, tattoo-covered hellion-turned-slipper-wearing dad with world-weary teenagers. Basically, his family’s shtick is to loaf around the house, which is furnished in a style that might be termed “kinky robber baron”: plush couches, antique carpets, crucifixes galore, totems of the occult and a menagerie of rebellious house pets.

The success of the show--a bizarre, unscripted, profanity-laced family comedy that gives new meaning to the term “reality TV”--has created heat for all things Ozzy. He’s got an invitation to play next week for Queen Elizabeth II, a six-figure book contract with Simon & Schuster, a big stack of magazine covers and a flurry of would-be imitators. The burst of celebrity for Osbourne and his family has spawned a host of Ozzie-and-Harriet allusions from cultural commentators (the consensus: America’s come a long way) and a scene-stealing appearance at the White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington.

And then there’s Ozzfest, a touring festival launched seven years ago with the idea of repackaging the aging rocker with young stars, which will play to a sold-out crowd in Prague, Czech Republic, tonight as it winds its way toward the United States, where it was the top hard-rock tour of 2001. It’s ripe to repeat the feat.

“I hope the Osbournes get filthy rich,” said Van Toffler, president of MTV and MTV2.

MTV is doing its part. Terms of the contract were not divulged, but Toffler said that previously published reports projecting that the contract would be valued at $20million were “wildly inflated.” Osbourne and his wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, were unavailable for comment, as the Ozzfest tour moves through Europe.

For its part, MTV can show each episode worldwide up to 100 times, while raising the cost of advertising on the show. Trade reports indicate that some commercials in the show have gone for close to $100,000, virtually unheard-of rates for a cable offering.

The network also committed to show three Osbournes specials this summer, including one described by MTV as “a very special dinner with the Osbournes.”

So-called “reality shows” such as MTV’s long-running “The Real World” and CBS’ “Survivor” have thrived, in part, because the casts change from one season to the next. But unlike those unscripted series, “The Osbournes” will not change its central characters next season, and its primary joke will remain the same.

“Ozzy, Sharon, Jack, Kelly, the dogs, the cats, the assistants, the band, the roadies, the security guards, the neighbors, Melinda the nanny and the rest will be back on MTV in the fall to the delight of millions of fans around the world,” Toffler said.

But how long will millions of viewers continue to be amused by Osbourne’s tiffs with wife, Sharon, shouting at kids Jack and Kelly and doing his chores around their kitchen? The torrent of profanities requires so many bleeps that the audio suggests a broken heart monitor.

At its height this spring, 7.8 million people tuned in on Tuesday nights at 10:30, according to Nielsen Media Research. And they weren’t just the channel’s core audience of 18- to 24-year-olds. “The Osbournes” plays to a wider swath, reaching into a demographic of 18- to 34-year-olds and beyond. Though its numbers pale in comparison with, say, NBC’s hit sitcom “Friends,” which pulls in about 25million viewers each week, its quirky approach helped it catch on as a hip viewing choice among media and entertainment industry elites.

Glenn Padnick, the over-50 president of Castle Rock TV, said the show’s appeal has spanned the generations at his house.

“My wife, who is my age, is not a typical MTV viewer, but she wandered into the room the first night when my son was watching it,” he said. “As weird as they are, they are a loving family.... It’s a great bonding thing.”

Toffler said next season may follow the Osbournes back to their other home in the United Kingdom, where the show just premiered to big ratings.

“Other people may float in and out,” Toffler said. “But we won’t fabricate anything that wouldn’t feel organic and, for example, introduce people that wouldn’t normally relate to the Osbournes.”

Mark Burnett, producer of “Survivor,” now preparing for its fifth edition, said the MTV series does not necessarily need to change.

“‘The Osbournes’ is really funny,” Burnett said. “I love it.... It’s successful because of the characters. He is hilarious without knowing it.”

The success of “The Osbournes” is also leading, predictably, to imitators, on MTV and elsewhere. E! Entertainment Television said Wednesday that it plans a similar show about buxom model-actress-widow Anna Nicole Smith. And Toffler said MTV is exploring projects that would provide behind-the-scenes looks at other entertainers and celebrities, such as rapper-record producer-entrepreneur Sean “P. Diddy” Combs.

“We’re talking about P. Diddy, but I don’t think we’d try to replicate a family situation like the Osbournes’,” he said. “I’m not sure we could ever find a family as unique, as unpredictable and as twisted as the Osbournes are.”

Perhaps most unpredictable of all is the current widespread acceptance of former Black Sabbath frontman Osbourne, once reviled by parents as a gory symbol of reckless rock, as an elder statesmen of heavy metal and as a multimedia star.

After a series of failed lawsuits by parents who claimed his music played a role in the suicides of their children, the screeching native of Birmingham, England, sat out the late 1980s to play father and heal himself. He called a 1991 album and tour his farewell effort, and with grunge and rap changing the sound of teen angst, there was every reason to presume he was accurate.

But seven years ago, he launched a festival tour celebrating the clangorous power of heavy metal. It was viewed as an ingenious creation of Sharon Osbourne to bring bigger and younger audiences to the singer, who had created the sonic blueprint for the British wave of 1970s metal music. Instead of touring on his own or with metal heroes of his generation, Ozzfest teamed him with young metal stars who view Osbourne with reverence and, by association, and kept him relevant.

Linkin Park, Papa Roach and Disturbed are just some of the bands that have become major sellers with help from stints on Ozzfest. This year’s edition of Ozzfest includes Rob Zombie, P.O.D., Adema and, of course, Osbourne himself, and it arrives in the U.S. on July 6 in Virginia and locally on Aug. 31 with two shows at the Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion.

The Ozzfest brand name has matured to become another moneymaker for Ozzy Inc. The tour now reportedly has record companies pay toward production costs if they want their new “baby bands” included. Some managers say the charge had been $75,000, but others say it’s now six digits.

Last year, Osbourne’s personal fortune was an estimated $58 million. One reason that figure stays high is the rocker’s benefit of having an in-house manager in wife Sharon, noted Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar magazine, the concert industry trade.

“That right there keeps the money in the same bank account,” said Bongiovanni, who added that a star of Osbourne’s stature generally pays a manager 10% of his income. “That’s the usual level. But, hey, who knows what kind of deal Sharon has worked out?”