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

Cynthetiq · 04-22-2003, 08:48 AM

Lots of you complain that MTV used to be great back in the day when it played videos and Nina Blackwood and JJ were the bomb. That was 20 years ago and well, your vote doesn't count because you aren't in the demographic anymore. MTV's sister channel VH1 is more in line with you since it's demographic is 26-40.

Interview with John Seabrook. John is a writer whose articles appear regularly in The New Yorker. He is the author of Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing,the Marketing of Culture.

What's it like walking through the doors of MTV?

The most striking thing about MTV is how many televisions there are, and how every sight line has one in it. You're constantly bombarded by the visual information and the quick cuts and the ffcolors and that visual energy, while at the same time, you're trying to get your bearings in this real space. And it's two different discourses going on. One is much faster and more information-soaked; that's the TV discourse. Then there's the real place, which is an office building.

But after that experience of taking in a lot of visual information, I find that when I left MTV and walked back out into Times Square . . . I had a temporary moment of aphasia, where I couldn't quite get my bearings. Was I watching this on TV or was I in Time Squares in reality? There was a blending and bleeding-over of boundaries in terms of real life and TV life, which is very much what MTV does.

What does MTV call its audience?

MTV refers to its audience as "the demo." Being "in the demo" means being in the demographic sweet spot that advertisers want their programming to hit, which is ideally between 18 and 24. Now, though, somewhat like the baseball strike zone, it's expanded to include 16-year-olds and 28-year-olds. But the demo proper is 18 to 24. That is thought to be the age at which young people have a lot of disposable income and they're also brand-sensitive. They haven't quite made up their minds yet about from which brands they are going to spend the rest of their buying. And there's a certain amount of research which suggests that, if you get the young person at that age when their minds are still unformed commercially, you can brand them, as it were, and then have their allegiance for the rest of their consuming lifetimes.

What is the attitude at MTV toward the demo--those young people--who actually work at MTV?

Well, one of the other things that struck me as interesting about MTV was the way the corporate structure worked internally. Because of the importance that everyone places on the demo, the people who are actually in the demo have this magical authority that their bosses don't have. There's this emphasis on the young person and on reading the young person in almost an anthropological approach to what these young people are thinking,

So, on the one hand, they often are doing menial jobs for small pay, and in terms of corporate structure, are low man on the totem pole. But within an anthropological MTV zeitgeist, they have this special authority, in that they are part of this demo that these old guys aren't. And the old guys know that. The old guys are smart to realize that if they personally like something, if it hits them instinctually, it's probably not a good idea for them to go with that, because they're too far out of that demographic to understand what's really going on. That is pretty unique, really, when you think about how programming decisions are made.

Most programmers do go with their gut; traditionally, that's been the way the producer in a commercial culture situation operated--by his or her gut. And at MTV, the gut is taken out of the whole equation. It's replaced by market research, and then by just asking people who work there what they like, or going out in the street and seeing what the kids like.

How is the demo consulted at MTV?

When I was there, I was spending time with Judy McGrath, who's the president of MTV. We were riding up in the elevator, for example, and this was a time with Lisa Loeb was being promoted as a nerd-rock icon that Judy thought would sell to an MTV audience. And the kids in the elevator were just absolutely trashing Lisa Loeb, as you can imagine a certain music lover would trash Lisa Loeb, who has a highbrow approach to rock 'n roll. I was just watching Judy's face. And Judy was stricken--you could tell she was taking it in. She wasn't saying anything, but when we got out of the elevator, she said, "Gee, I hope my idea about nerd rock is not totally off base."

The people at MTV are encouraged to be very confrontational and declarative about their tastes. So when you go to a programming meeting about which videos should be put into heavy rotation and which should not, you have the hip-hop faction, you have the heavy metal faction, you have the goth faction and you have the pop Britney Spears faction. And all of those factions are encouraged to debate their positions, actively and vigorously. Then it's up to the people like Judy McGrath to filter in the other factors--what's selling, what's hot, and what's not in terms of the Billboard charts--and put that all together into programming choices.

But they do encourage the conversations that young people have about music, which tend to be very heated. If you look on the internet, you've got the hip-hop people flaming the heavy metal people and back and forth endlessly. They encourage that environment.

But if you're in the demo, you're listened to with extra interest?

I don't mean to romanticize being in the demo. If you talk to the people who actually are in the demo, they say, "We wish we were paid more." In a way, MTV is exploiting them to a certain extent-- giving them a lot of editorial say--but they aren't actually giving them a whole lot in terms of institutional control. And another aspect of MTV that is important is that, as you move out of the demo and as you get older, instead of being promoted up through the organization, many people leave. After the age of 26 or 27, they go on to other more traditional programming jobs, because they're no longer quite as useful. It's a bit like "Logan's Run" in that regard.

. . . The environment of MTV is very much what you see on MTV in terms of the zany, kooky stuff. There are a lot of young people there who are dancing in the hallways. A song comes on and somebody says, "This song rules," and then someone says, "This song sucks," and it's very much like "American Bandstand" used to be. But "American Bandstand" was on-camera and staged, whereas with MTV, we're talking about the real people who work there. It's off-camera and it's not staged. But the whole feeling of it is very much like a stage. Now they've actually set up the studio in Times Square so that you can watch the VJs and their guests through the window on the second floor of 1515 Broadway. And every day, every afternoon, there's screaming fans on the other side of the street. So the whole feeling has spilled out, outside the building, and is now also part of 44th and Broadway, that feeling of, "Is this a TV set? Is this real life?"

That breakdown between real life and TV life is a central truth of MTV. And when you talk about the cultural significance of MTV as a whole, you keep coming back to that notion that there used to be a proscenium arch, and the audience was on this side, and the television life was on this side, and you knew the difference. You sat on the one side and watched the fantasy on the other side.

MTV has deconstructed that area. Shows like "The Real World" are very much to the point, in that it's a real life, but it's also TV. It's a TV show, and it's edited together. Of course, that has now informed shows like "Survivor." And now we have actual news events that seem more like TV dramas almost more than news. So that whole ethos has spread way beyond MTV. But when you trace it back, the significance of MTV comes into play.

As a general proposition, what's the place of market research at MTV?

Market research is key for the executives who are outside the demo, because they cannot rely on their instincts to make programming decisions. They have to rely on market research and on what they can glean from the underlings who actually work for them. So market research takes the place of taste. In the old world, in a less youth-oriented environment, producers or people making decisions can rely on their own taste. Hence, we have this phrase "tastemaker," which was the person who set the standards and used his own instincts to inform the tastes of others. With MTV, you have a situation where the so-called "tastemakers" cannot rely on their own taste, because their taste is not the taste of the demo. So they need market research to take the place of their taste, and that's the role that it plays, which is a very significant change in terms of how producing decisions are made.

rest of article...

04-22-2003, 08:48 AM	#19 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	MTV Article #3 Lots of you complain that MTV used to be great back in the day when it played videos and Nina Blackwood and JJ were the bomb. That was 20 years ago and well, your vote doesn't count because you aren't in the demographic anymore. MTV's sister channel VH1 is more in line with you since it's demographic is 26-40. Interview with John Seabrook. John is a writer whose articles appear regularly in The New Yorker. He is the author of Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing,the Marketing of Culture. What's it like walking through the doors of MTV? The most striking thing about MTV is how many televisions there are, and how every sight line has one in it. You're constantly bombarded by the visual information and the quick cuts and the ffcolors and that visual energy, while at the same time, you're trying to get your bearings in this real space. And it's two different discourses going on. One is much faster and more information-soaked; that's the TV discourse. Then there's the real place, which is an office building. But after that experience of taking in a lot of visual information, I find that when I left MTV and walked back out into Times Square . . . I had a temporary moment of aphasia, where I couldn't quite get my bearings. Was I watching this on TV or was I in Time Squares in reality? There was a blending and bleeding-over of boundaries in terms of real life and TV life, which is very much what MTV does. What does MTV call its audience? MTV refers to its audience as "the demo." Being "in the demo" means being in the demographic sweet spot that advertisers want their programming to hit, which is ideally between 18 and 24. Now, though, somewhat like the baseball strike zone, it's expanded to include 16-year-olds and 28-year-olds. But the demo proper is 18 to 24. That is thought to be the age at which young people have a lot of disposable income and they're also brand-sensitive. They haven't quite made up their minds yet about from which brands they are going to spend the rest of their buying. And there's a certain amount of research which suggests that, if you get the young person at that age when their minds are still unformed commercially, you can brand them, as it were, and then have their allegiance for the rest of their consuming lifetimes. What is the attitude at MTV toward the demo--those young people--who actually work at MTV? Well, one of the other things that struck me as interesting about MTV was the way the corporate structure worked internally. Because of the importance that everyone places on the demo, the people who are actually in the demo have this magical authority that their bosses don't have. There's this emphasis on the young person and on reading the young person in almost an anthropological approach to what these young people are thinking, So, on the one hand, they often are doing menial jobs for small pay, and in terms of corporate structure, are low man on the totem pole. But within an anthropological MTV zeitgeist, they have this special authority, in that they are part of this demo that these old guys aren't. And the old guys know that. The old guys are smart to realize that if they personally like something, if it hits them instinctually, it's probably not a good idea for them to go with that, because they're too far out of that demographic to understand what's really going on. That is pretty unique, really, when you think about how programming decisions are made. Most programmers do go with their gut; traditionally, that's been the way the producer in a commercial culture situation operated--by his or her gut. And at MTV, the gut is taken out of the whole equation. It's replaced by market research, and then by just asking people who work there what they like, or going out in the street and seeing what the kids like. How is the demo consulted at MTV? When I was there, I was spending time with Judy McGrath, who's the president of MTV. We were riding up in the elevator, for example, and this was a time with Lisa Loeb was being promoted as a nerd-rock icon that Judy thought would sell to an MTV audience. And the kids in the elevator were just absolutely trashing Lisa Loeb, as you can imagine a certain music lover would trash Lisa Loeb, who has a highbrow approach to rock 'n roll. I was just watching Judy's face. And Judy was stricken--you could tell she was taking it in. She wasn't saying anything, but when we got out of the elevator, she said, "Gee, I hope my idea about nerd rock is not totally off base." The people at MTV are encouraged to be very confrontational and declarative about their tastes. So when you go to a programming meeting about which videos should be put into heavy rotation and which should not, you have the hip-hop faction, you have the heavy metal faction, you have the goth faction and you have the pop Britney Spears faction. And all of those factions are encouraged to debate their positions, actively and vigorously. Then it's up to the people like Judy McGrath to filter in the other factors--what's selling, what's hot, and what's not in terms of the Billboard charts--and put that all together into programming choices. But they do encourage the conversations that young people have about music, which tend to be very heated. If you look on the internet, you've got the hip-hop people flaming the heavy metal people and back and forth endlessly. They encourage that environment. But if you're in the demo, you're listened to with extra interest? I don't mean to romanticize being in the demo. If you talk to the people who actually are in the demo, they say, "We wish we were paid more." In a way, MTV is exploiting them to a certain extent-- giving them a lot of editorial say--but they aren't actually giving them a whole lot in terms of institutional control. And another aspect of MTV that is important is that, as you move out of the demo and as you get older, instead of being promoted up through the organization, many people leave. After the age of 26 or 27, they go on to other more traditional programming jobs, because they're no longer quite as useful. It's a bit like "Logan's Run" in that regard. . . . The environment of MTV is very much what you see on MTV in terms of the zany, kooky stuff. There are a lot of young people there who are dancing in the hallways. A song comes on and somebody says, "This song rules," and then someone says, "This song sucks," and it's very much like "American Bandstand" used to be. But "American Bandstand" was on-camera and staged, whereas with MTV, we're talking about the real people who work there. It's off-camera and it's not staged. But the whole feeling of it is very much like a stage. Now they've actually set up the studio in Times Square so that you can watch the VJs and their guests through the window on the second floor of 1515 Broadway. And every day, every afternoon, there's screaming fans on the other side of the street. So the whole feeling has spilled out, outside the building, and is now also part of 44th and Broadway, that feeling of, "Is this a TV set? Is this real life?" That breakdown between real life and TV life is a central truth of MTV. And when you talk about the cultural significance of MTV as a whole, you keep coming back to that notion that there used to be a proscenium arch, and the audience was on this side, and the television life was on this side, and you knew the difference. You sat on the one side and watched the fantasy on the other side. MTV has deconstructed that area. Shows like "The Real World" are very much to the point, in that it's a real life, but it's also TV. It's a TV show, and it's edited together. Of course, that has now informed shows like "Survivor." And now we have actual news events that seem more like TV dramas almost more than news. So that whole ethos has spread way beyond MTV. But when you trace it back, the significance of MTV comes into play. As a general proposition, what's the place of market research at MTV? Market research is key for the executives who are outside the demo, because they cannot rely on their instincts to make programming decisions. They have to rely on market research and on what they can glean from the underlings who actually work for them. So market research takes the place of taste. In the old world, in a less youth-oriented environment, producers or people making decisions can rely on their own taste. Hence, we have this phrase "tastemaker," which was the person who set the standards and used his own instincts to inform the tastes of others. With MTV, you have a situation where the so-called "tastemakers" cannot rely on their own taste, because their taste is not the taste of the demo. So they need market research to take the place of their taste, and that's the role that it plays, which is a very significant change in terms of how producing decisions are made. rest of article... __________________ 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 08:51 AM..