Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Opinions on MTV ( I know this is going to stir up poop )

Cynthetiq · 04-22-2003, 08:34 AM

This article is a good article showing how the Elders of MTV think and powwow. I've met with many of these people over my time at MTV Networks and each of them are honest and good people.

Creativity can come from anywhere within the company you just have to have an idea and pitch it. I have had two friends in the IT department participate in the creation of shows, one of them was a consultant on a show on hacking and the other is still to be aired and he's conceived and produced the whole show.

Multichannel News
June 11, 2001

Secrets in the Sauce.(MTV Networks Inc.'s successful programs)

Author/s: Alan Waldman

BEHIND MTV'S STRONG PROGRAMMING TRACK RECORD IS A CULTURE THAT NURTURES CREATIVITY AND STAYS TUNED TO THE AUDIENCE

A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN RECOILS in horror at the news she's just gotten from a fortune teller. Her best friends have drawn the Tarot cards for "success" and "wealth," but Carmen's future has even the soothsayer in a funk. The only thing ahead for her, he says, is "death."

Carmen, played by pop music megastar Beyonce Knowles, runs from the fortune teller's ornate parlor, determined to avoid her fate. In the next few hours, she'll abandon the handsome but down-and-out man she loves and hook up with Blaze, a hugely successful rap star, only to be shot to death by a corrupt cop.

The scenes are hip, studded with music industry stars and reminiscent of Bizet's famous opera, Carmen. Only in this production, the characters aren't singing their lines, they're rapping them.

MTV's Hiphopera: Carmen topped the ratings for viewers aged 12-34 the night of its premiere and captured the second largest audience ever for an original film on MTV. It also typified the kinds of programming left turns that have kept the network out front in the art of creating new forms of TV entertainment.

MTV created its first reality show, Real World, a decade before the current reality craze emerged. It sparked a boom in bent-humored animation aimed at adults and changed forever the way awards shows are presented with its annual, hugely successful showcase of the best in music video.

Behind all this innovation is a never-ending need to stay ahead of what's happening. "MTV has to keep re-inventing itself, because its audience is always evolving and becoming disenchanted with what was cool last season," says TV Guide senior critic Matt Roush. "Because each new MTV audience rebels against the previous one, each Beavis and Butt-Head or Jackass burns out and has to be replaced by something newer, cooler, funnier and more outrageous. MTV can never rest on its laurels, because that is antithetical to what the network is."

The countdown of MTV's programming breakthroughs is long. Its first original program, 1985's Remote Control, "was the first show to turn TV on its ear and make fun of the medium itself," recalls Brian Graden, the former South Park producer and Foxlab senior vice president (responsible for Cops and America's Most Wanted) who has, as programming and production president for MTV, been responsible for many of the channel's innovations since 1997.

New York Daily News TV critic David Bianculli believes MTV's most important original show was Unplugged. "Stripping the music bare was a great idea," he says, "and it produced classic albums from bands like Nirvana and Eric Clapton that wouldn't have otherwise existed."

Another critically important show was YO! MTV Raps, which helped spawn the growth of one of today's most popular musical movements. "We took music that was made for the cities and took it everywhere," says Dave Sirulnick, MTV news and production executive vice president. "Today, hip hop/rap is the sound of young America, pulsing through fashion, sports, movies and advertising, the way Motown did in the '60s."

MTV has a long history of groundbreaking animation, beginning with 1991's Emmywinning Liquid Television and continuing with Beavis and Butt-Head (1993), its sitcom spin-off Daria 1997), Celebrity Deathmatch (1998) and 22-year-old whiz kid Pete Williams' Undergrads (2001).

"Beavis and Butt-Head was a pioneer in making heroes out of imbeciles, in positive ways, and most of it was incredibly funny," observes Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg. "That show was so antithetical to anything that was on TV that it paved the way for South Park and made it easier for bent humor to get onto mainstream TV, and that had always been a struggle." Roush sees Beavis and Butt-Head as "a highly subversive parody of what Mike Judge imagined the MTV stoner/slacker audience to be."

The list of groundbreaking MTV original programs could go on and on, including Jackass, Cribs, Fanatic, The Andy Dick Show, The Tom Green Show, The Lyricist Lounge Show, Senseless Acts of Video, VJ For a Day, the Uncensored series and a wide range of interactive programs. The network has launched more personalities into pop culture than any other cable outlet, including Jenny McCarthy, Ben Stiller, Dennis Leary, Cindy Crawford, Carson Daly, Martha Quinn, Julie Brown, Dan Cortez, Tom Green and Johnny Knoxville.

Yet despite such a track record, the quest to "stay fresh" and come up with new ideas has never gotten easy, says Van Toffler, president of MTV and MTV2. A big part of the way MTV operates, in fact, is geared to keep the entire company trolling for what's next.

Top executives like Toffler and Judy McGrath, president of MTV Group and chairman of Interactive Music, press department heads to identify the brightest young minds on their teams, singling them out to attend "brainstorms," gatherings of key staff members to address issues.

The "brainstorm," in fact, is one of what McGrath calls "MTV secrets in the sauce." It is a gathering of people that can involve staffers from across all of MTV Networks and a dozen or so can be going on at any given time. Currently, one brainstorm is looking at interactive TV while another is examining MTV itself, its "tone and attitude," and "what it tells people when making decisions about new videos, shows or on-air talent," McGrath says.

An important brainstorm takes place every year in June, when 60 or so MTV executives and staffers head to a run-down resort on the tip of Long Island, to hole up for three days and consider new programming ideas. MTV programming and production president Brian Graden emcee's the event, getting individuals to describe their ideas, and leading the group to build on them and agree on which projects will go forward. "We leave having greenlighted 50 projects, everything we need for a year," McGrath explains.

The atmosphere at MTV also encourages creativity, insiders say. "The environment here is everybody talking at once and interrupting each other," McGrath says. "For me and for a lot of us, the senior executives, if you will, it's an opportunity to hear from people deeper in the organization. You walk the halls and see these great looking, interesting people and you want to hear what they have to say."

MTV staffers hit the clubs regularly, looking for what's new. A number of the network's executives make a habit of hanging out with viewers standing on line at events like the Movie Awards or assembling daily out front of the company's Times Square headquarters during TRL.

Fostering the whole process, says Toffler, is MTV Networks chairman Tom Freston, who makes it clear that creativity comes first. "The business side is important, of course," Toffler says, "but you can see his eyes light up when he hears a good idea, and you know that he knows the profits don't come without the ideas."

McGrath adds that it's Freston's credo, followed at MTV since almost the beginning, that keeps the innovations coming: "Try not to let people realize that this is a business."

CULTIVATING THE UNEXPECTED

The Video Music Awards demonstrated just how big cable event programming can be, generating ratings that outclass those of top broadcast stations in key markets and creating one of the biggest local ad sales venues for cable operators each year. At the same time, the show shattered tried-and-true award show formulas, spurring other shows to follow suit.

"You never know what's going to happen," says Dave Sirulnick, MTV's executive vice president of news and production. "The bands know this is their core audience, so they have to give 200 percent. Their performances have to, top the prior year's and each other's."

VMA producers pair presenters in unexpected ways--Milton Berle appeared with Rue Paul--and make sure the is filled with emerging trend setters. "We try to put of the people who shape pop culture in the room." Sirulnick says, "and it's combustible. The VMAs took the shackles off awards shows."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT 2001 Cahners Publishing Company
in association with The Gale Group and LookSmart. COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

04-22-2003, 08:34 AM	#18 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	MTV Article #2 This article is a good article showing how the Elders of MTV think and powwow. I've met with many of these people over my time at MTV Networks and each of them are honest and good people. Creativity can come from anywhere within the company you just have to have an idea and pitch it. I have had two friends in the IT department participate in the creation of shows, one of them was a consultant on a show on hacking and the other is still to be aired and he's conceived and produced the whole show. Multichannel News June 11, 2001 Secrets in the Sauce.(MTV Networks Inc.'s successful programs) Author/s: Alan Waldman BEHIND MTV'S STRONG PROGRAMMING TRACK RECORD IS A CULTURE THAT NURTURES CREATIVITY AND STAYS TUNED TO THE AUDIENCE A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN RECOILS in horror at the news she's just gotten from a fortune teller. Her best friends have drawn the Tarot cards for "success" and "wealth," but Carmen's future has even the soothsayer in a funk. The only thing ahead for her, he says, is "death." Carmen, played by pop music megastar Beyonce Knowles, runs from the fortune teller's ornate parlor, determined to avoid her fate. In the next few hours, she'll abandon the handsome but down-and-out man she loves and hook up with Blaze, a hugely successful rap star, only to be shot to death by a corrupt cop. The scenes are hip, studded with music industry stars and reminiscent of Bizet's famous opera, Carmen. Only in this production, the characters aren't singing their lines, they're rapping them. MTV's Hiphopera: Carmen topped the ratings for viewers aged 12-34 the night of its premiere and captured the second largest audience ever for an original film on MTV. It also typified the kinds of programming left turns that have kept the network out front in the art of creating new forms of TV entertainment. MTV created its first reality show, Real World, a decade before the current reality craze emerged. It sparked a boom in bent-humored animation aimed at adults and changed forever the way awards shows are presented with its annual, hugely successful showcase of the best in music video. Behind all this innovation is a never-ending need to stay ahead of what's happening. "MTV has to keep re-inventing itself, because its audience is always evolving and becoming disenchanted with what was cool last season," says TV Guide senior critic Matt Roush. "Because each new MTV audience rebels against the previous one, each Beavis and Butt-Head or Jackass burns out and has to be replaced by something newer, cooler, funnier and more outrageous. MTV can never rest on its laurels, because that is antithetical to what the network is." The countdown of MTV's programming breakthroughs is long. Its first original program, 1985's Remote Control, "was the first show to turn TV on its ear and make fun of the medium itself," recalls Brian Graden, the former South Park producer and Foxlab senior vice president (responsible for Cops and America's Most Wanted) who has, as programming and production president for MTV, been responsible for many of the channel's innovations since 1997. New York Daily News TV critic David Bianculli believes MTV's most important original show was Unplugged. "Stripping the music bare was a great idea," he says, "and it produced classic albums from bands like Nirvana and Eric Clapton that wouldn't have otherwise existed." Another critically important show was YO! MTV Raps, which helped spawn the growth of one of today's most popular musical movements. "We took music that was made for the cities and took it everywhere," says Dave Sirulnick, MTV news and production executive vice president. "Today, hip hop/rap is the sound of young America, pulsing through fashion, sports, movies and advertising, the way Motown did in the '60s." MTV has a long history of groundbreaking animation, beginning with 1991's Emmywinning Liquid Television and continuing with Beavis and Butt-Head (1993), its sitcom spin-off Daria 1997), Celebrity Deathmatch (1998) and 22-year-old whiz kid Pete Williams' Undergrads (2001). "Beavis and Butt-Head was a pioneer in making heroes out of imbeciles, in positive ways, and most of it was incredibly funny," observes Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg. "That show was so antithetical to anything that was on TV that it paved the way for South Park and made it easier for bent humor to get onto mainstream TV, and that had always been a struggle." Roush sees Beavis and Butt-Head as "a highly subversive parody of what Mike Judge imagined the MTV stoner/slacker audience to be." The list of groundbreaking MTV original programs could go on and on, including Jackass, Cribs, Fanatic, The Andy Dick Show, The Tom Green Show, The Lyricist Lounge Show, Senseless Acts of Video, VJ For a Day, the Uncensored series and a wide range of interactive programs. The network has launched more personalities into pop culture than any other cable outlet, including Jenny McCarthy, Ben Stiller, Dennis Leary, Cindy Crawford, Carson Daly, Martha Quinn, Julie Brown, Dan Cortez, Tom Green and Johnny Knoxville. Yet despite such a track record, the quest to "stay fresh" and come up with new ideas has never gotten easy, says Van Toffler, president of MTV and MTV2. A big part of the way MTV operates, in fact, is geared to keep the entire company trolling for what's next. Top executives like Toffler and Judy McGrath, president of MTV Group and chairman of Interactive Music, press department heads to identify the brightest young minds on their teams, singling them out to attend "brainstorms," gatherings of key staff members to address issues. The "brainstorm," in fact, is one of what McGrath calls "MTV secrets in the sauce." It is a gathering of people that can involve staffers from across all of MTV Networks and a dozen or so can be going on at any given time. Currently, one brainstorm is looking at interactive TV while another is examining MTV itself, its "tone and attitude," and "what it tells people when making decisions about new videos, shows or on-air talent," McGrath says. An important brainstorm takes place every year in June, when 60 or so MTV executives and staffers head to a run-down resort on the tip of Long Island, to hole up for three days and consider new programming ideas. MTV programming and production president Brian Graden emcee's the event, getting individuals to describe their ideas, and leading the group to build on them and agree on which projects will go forward. "We leave having greenlighted 50 projects, everything we need for a year," McGrath explains. The atmosphere at MTV also encourages creativity, insiders say. "The environment here is everybody talking at once and interrupting each other," McGrath says. "For me and for a lot of us, the senior executives, if you will, it's an opportunity to hear from people deeper in the organization. You walk the halls and see these great looking, interesting people and you want to hear what they have to say." MTV staffers hit the clubs regularly, looking for what's new. A number of the network's executives make a habit of hanging out with viewers standing on line at events like the Movie Awards or assembling daily out front of the company's Times Square headquarters during TRL. Fostering the whole process, says Toffler, is MTV Networks chairman Tom Freston, who makes it clear that creativity comes first. "The business side is important, of course," Toffler says, "but you can see his eyes light up when he hears a good idea, and you know that he knows the profits don't come without the ideas." McGrath adds that it's Freston's credo, followed at MTV since almost the beginning, that keeps the innovations coming: "Try not to let people realize that this is a business." CULTIVATING THE UNEXPECTED The Video Music Awards demonstrated just how big cable event programming can be, generating ratings that outclass those of top broadcast stations in key markets and creating one of the biggest local ad sales venues for cable operators each year. At the same time, the show shattered tried-and-true award show formulas, spurring other shows to follow suit. "You never know what's going to happen," says Dave Sirulnick, MTV's executive vice president of news and production. "The bands know this is their core audience, so they have to give 200 percent. Their performances have to, top the prior year's and each other's." VMA producers pair presenters in unexpected ways--Milton Berle appeared with Rue Paul--and make sure the is filled with emerging trend setters. "We try to put of the people who shape pop culture in the room." Sirulnick says, "and it's combustible. The VMAs took the shackles off awards shows." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- COPYRIGHT 2001 Cahners Publishing Company in association with The Gale Group and LookSmart. COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION! Last edited by Cynthetiq; 04-22-2003 at 08:40 AM..