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

Ambition · 04-21-2003, 02:15 PM

I think I'm going to further comment after I get some feedback. But I'd like to say that they can the good shows and keep the crappy ones.

Few things to maybe thing about:

- Do they send out conflicting messages? (anti-drug/anti-whatever then condone it with the party lifestyle they film as "real life")

- Are they trend setters? or trend followers(see whats hip and commercialize it)

- Are their "Real World" shows real? ( realistic or set up )

- Why are they Music Television and it's the last thing they play.

- Why do they can the shows that are usually more liked, at least by the people that I talk to.

Whatever else you feel like bringing up.

LordEden · 04-21-2003, 02:24 PM

I really got tired of MTV, if it wasn't real world, then it was the lack of music videos. MTV use to be great, showed the best music out there, was a jumping block for alot of great artists and was a great source of entertaintment. Lately, with corporation and fads being money makers, it's all commercial. They are confliciting messages, they will show anti-drug commercials and shows (BTW their "view" into the world of people who use drugs are always blown out of the water, True Life: I'm on X and True Life: I smoke weed were pure media-hyped urban myths) music videos with drug refrences and drinking. Spring break is not real life, nor is Real World/Road Rules. I wish someone would pay my rent for a year, give me a kickass job somewhere on a tropical island! Shit I can barely afford a trailer in bum-fuck-egypt and I work as a server. I miss the days of non-stop videos of rock and good bands... but now it's all rap and reality TV shows, because all the kids now watching MTV want to be black (and still live in white upper-class neigiborhoods).
**Steps off soapbox and sets it afire** Well I'm done

.

fearofmear · 04-21-2003, 02:39 PM

They have editorials denouncing the lack of good music, for which they are a major cause of. They don't show any fucking videos except horrible rap ( I like rap, just hate the hip pop shit they show). I would say they are the trend followers. They haven't help break a good music act since Nirvana.

One thing that I still get pissed about was when the war in Iraq started. They had frigging Fred Durst on pontificating about the meaning of it all. I wanted to shot my TV for that. Let's not forget MTV's liberal leanings also.

Ambition · 04-21-2003, 02:44 PM

Awesome, I'm getting some well though out responses on this. Kick ass, Want to hear more.

KillerYoda · 04-21-2003, 03:06 PM

MTV has pretty much become a new way too keep up the poser lifestyle. All they show anymore is rap, then break formula for a month or so to showcase music that came out months ago so moron can go out and buy it, then ruin it for the people who liked it all along. Pretty much, MTV kills music by showcasing it nowadays.

World's King · 04-21-2003, 03:14 PM

MTV raised me.

I still hate it

PorscheBunny · 04-21-2003, 03:37 PM

MTV started sucking when they started showing more "shows" than videos. The Real World isn't real, duh. MTV is now followers, not leaders, as they've been since about 1996 and probably earlier.

LordEden · 04-21-2003, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by World's King
MTV raised me.

I still hate it

HAHA, I feel like that sometimes, I remember watching MTV all the time, but now I just hate everything it is. MTV's one flicker of intelligent programming was the Osbourn's... I know alot of people hate the show but I loved it, Ozzy is funny and Sharon is great

. I hated MTV the most when they took away MTVX (OH MAN 24/7 rock videos, I left it on tv all the time when I digital) and put in MTVJ all HIP FUCKING HOP videos! I hate wannabe thug rap.

Zotz · 04-21-2003, 04:29 PM

I remember when it first started and they played rock videos ALL the time. The same ones over and over. It was fantastic. PorscheBunny is right by saying that it started sucking when they put more shows on than videos.

BBtB · 04-21-2003, 04:30 PM

MTV are combination followers and leaders. I mean they never come up with an original idea but when they take an idea and use it becomes a "thing" I hardly ever watch mtv enough to care anymore. All I ever do is SOMETIMES watch it late at night when they are playing videos.

K-Billy · 04-21-2003, 07:15 PM

MTV is to music as KFC is to chicken.

-Lewis Black

richeee · 04-21-2003, 08:55 PM

I was going to quote Ambition's post, then I read all the other posts, and I don't know how to quote ALL!!!
I agree with all of the previous and I have EVERY right to say: MTV SUCKS!!!!
I worked for MTV during day 1, and sadly watched the demise of the goals/dreams/intentions. So much potential lost! John Sykes sold his soul!

finally · 04-22-2003, 02:19 AM

While I can't exactly stand MTv, I have one word of vindication: "Daria."

sixate · 04-22-2003, 03:52 AM

MTV is spoon fed bullshit that a huge portion of the population eats at an unbelievable rate. They haven't played more music than stupid shows in a day in at least 10-12 years. That's hardly Music TV. All they do is show dumb reality shows and other mindless crap. I'll never understand why people watch it. I couldn't even tell you who any of the current VJ's are on that station. The only thing that I like about pop music are all the hot little blondes that run around wearing next to nothing. Don't even get me started on boy bands.

Reese · 04-22-2003, 05:46 AM

one word... FUSE! Formally Much Music!

The only show I DONT watch on MMUSA is Behind the music that sucks.. because well.. it sucks. I can watch Uranium ALL day long. Julia is SO hot.

MTV has been going down hill since they pulled Bevis and butthead. They are all PC now sending mixxed messages like drugs are bad then showing how good of a time you can have at spring break with binge drinking girls and X users. Blah Real world really depends on the definition of "real" it might not be scripted but all that crap they do is encouraged and probally rewarded.

MTV2 used to be good but now they have no variety. The last week all I've seen on is The Wrap with a wannabe metal fan Ian robbison and *I look like a nerd indie rocker* Gideon Yaggo. Hiphop shows about 17 hours out of the day and a 10 hour long marathon of stuff about madonna played at least once a day for the last week. Thats not music, its torture!

Cynthetiq · 04-22-2003, 06:52 AM

Having worked at MTV for the past 6 years (I was lucky to work on Beavis and Buttheand and Daria) I have some insight that I can shed on the creative side and other pieces that can bring you a different perspective.

Since I'm currently holed up in the hospital for the moment, I'll put together a comprehensive post in a bit of a collection of websites that really give a good picture of how MTV operates and what it is really trying try to accomplish.

Originally Artelevision asked me about some of this in a PM and I was trying to formulate an educated response, so I thought it would be best to post it for everyone.

Cynthetiq · 04-22-2003, 08:32 AM

I've had the privilege to meet with Tom Freston one on one in the office and at his home, he's a very down to earh private man. He's also an exception as far as CEOs are concerened. He's very interested in the people who work for them and it's very apparent in this article.

excerpt from Wall Street Journal

LESSONS FROM MTV

MTV CEO Tom Freston told The Wall Street Journal's "Boss Talk" how MTV stays tuned in to teens (3/21/00). But remove "teens" and his lessons apply to any business. Freston advises you to:

Do as much consumer research as possible.
Develop a staff and culture inherently interested in what you do.
Encourage ideas from the bottom up by making your business a fun place to work.
Don't follow your market as they grow older. Focus on the next generation.
To encourage ideas from the bottom up, Freston says that he tries to give MTV a "sense of smallness." "The idea is this is still a boutique... where someone can make a difference." About today's teens, Freston says they "travel with two passports." While they are international in their awareness, their local world is increasingly more important.

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."

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

holtmate · 04-22-2003, 08:51 AM

everything on MTV has become watered down...
I love their "spanking new music" weeks where they "debut" acts like the Donnas who have been around for years...
It's just a mess of "original" programming with 2 or 3 hours of videos thrown in during the day...

Cynthetiq · 04-22-2003, 08:54 AM

Watch the PBS: Frontline: Merchants of Cool. It's a good view of what it's like within the research and marketing of what's cool MTV style.

pickledaddy · 04-22-2003, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by finally
While I can't exactly stand MTv, I have one word of vindication: "Daria."

I must agree with you. "Daria" was a great show. I also liked "Jackass" because I'm stupid. "The Osbournes" was funny before I realized it was the same thing every episode. I watched MTV when I was preteen. I thought it was cool to act like a party teen. Now I realize that screeching teens on TRL (the one show on MTV that shows music, and it only plays about 6 videos completely) are the mindless sheep I loathe with a passion.

laconic1 · 04-22-2003, 07:04 PM

I can't stand MTV anymore. I'm at the high end of "the demo" at 23, but the whole network irritates me. TRL? If I remember right when it started it was a half hour show that played 5 videos in their entirety? Now the last I saw it, it is three times longer, only shows ten videos, and shows none of them in their entirety. And don't even get me started on Carson Daly.

Mutant X · 04-22-2003, 07:14 PM

I no longer watch the channel unless im in the company of those who are watching it's programming. I'll only tune in again later this year when they air the new Spider-Man series, otherwise i'd like to think i have enough common sense not to watch a channel comprised of 24 hours of turds being flung at my tv screen.

Tophat665 · 04-22-2003, 07:15 PM

Real People have Jobs. Real People pay Rent.

MTV hasn't played 10 minutes of watchable programming back to back since they canned Liquid Television. They had already stopped providing their raison d'etre - music - long since.

yournamehere · 04-22-2003, 08:28 PM

It seems their target audience gets younger each year.
Or is it just me getting older?

Cynthetiq · 04-24-2003, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by yournamehere
It seems their target audience gets younger each year.
Or is it just me getting older?

you are just getting older

Hycdubg · 04-24-2003, 10:20 AM

MTV is a farce, or it is as long as they still have Music Television as their acronym. With all the reality shows and shit, they should change their name to Sexually Depressed Hormonal College Students TV.

Get back to the music MTV, and stuff besides the top 10 requested songs. I can't take much more 50 cent.

GSRIDER · 04-24-2003, 11:13 AM

Ok... I see it now.... basically MTV is Sesame Street for teens and the ultra hip. Once you're too old it's time to move over to VH1 or CMT? Until finally you're just not cracked up for all that noise those kids are making now-a-days.

Lord nows I spent a good amount of time on my ass watching it in the 80's... what happened to Headbangers Ball is what I want to know....... I couldn't afford to leave Minnesota for Spring Break so I just watched MTVs.

Now I never watch it. Discovery Channel, Comedy Central, ESPN and SCI Fi are my goto entertainments

ARTelevision · 04-24-2003, 05:31 PM

Oh dude this is fantastic! Thanks for the inside scoop, cynthetiq!!!

I'll post here occasionally as I digest your ongoing digest.

Thanks so much...

Silentdreamer · 04-24-2003, 06:34 PM

MTV has gone down hill in recent years.... It used to be the coolest, but it has gotten outta hand. They should go back to playing videos....I can never catch a video on MTV unless it is the same 10 over and over.

Johnny Rotten · 04-24-2003, 08:32 PM

It ain't "Music" Television anymore, that's for sure. Maybe it's because music started to suck after grunge started showing gray hairs and Pearl Jam, the strongest icon of the movement, refused to do any other videos after "Jeremy."

They poured on the shows, and they were and are, for the most part, quite good. It's easy to hate an organization that chases after youth culture trends--just realize that good music doesn't last forever and eventually the programming blocks have to be filled up with better content. One can only take so much Creed, boy bands, and over-the-top gangsta rap.

Granted, shows like Real World and Road Rules overstayed their welcome long past sanity, but then they have some awesome cartoons. Or so I've heard--I haven't watched more than half an hour of programming in years. For the record, I got tired of it *before* I went to college, as did most of my peers.

Grondar · 04-24-2003, 08:52 PM

I honestly don't watch MTV (or VH1) for that matter. I never really got too interested in music videos, and instead really enjoy listening to music.

I love listening to music, but I just never got interested in music videos, and thus rarely watch(ed) MTV.

I have tuned into the station a few times to catch Tough Enough and the occasional spring break special, but other than that, I rarely watch MTV.

brandon11983 · 04-26-2003, 12:37 PM

i prefer muchmusic a lot more. i feel this way because i like music. i could give a shit less about a bunch of brats living together. plus, even when mtv does play videos, they are never what i want to see. i'm a metal head, and uranium on mmusa caters to us.

warrrreagl · 04-29-2003, 12:48 PM

I was 20 when MTV came on the air, and our cable system carried it within the first six months. By 1984, I had given up on it, because it got boring.

BobaClark · 04-29-2003, 08:20 PM

As someone who is in that high-school generation who should be watching MTV right now, all I can say is, I'm tired of the "Real World." I agree with the idea that they should change their name. They do occasionally have good music on though. But one can only take so much 50-cent. All I can say is...thank god for CDs.

wordssmith22 · 04-29-2003, 09:27 PM

none of the music channels (mtv, bet, cmc) play the videos for songs i enjoy listening to since my music doesn't involve selling out your soul. the shows on mtv aren't all that bad, but i don't understand why they show shows that are still airing on other networks. they show that crappy fastlane which is on fox and what appears to be equaly crappy platinum which is on upn.

gassedicycle155 · 05-22-2003, 10:52 PM

cynthetiq - your absolutely right that Mtv has very effective means of business... this may seem out of proportion, but so does the fucking tobacco industry. Smoking has always been an mvp in pop culture, and thats why its so damn common. I know, i know, my body my choice and all that shit.. but i was in a class made up of 1-2 kids from each school in the surrounding area (or most of, anyway), total about 20 kids, and 5 of us didnt smoke. guess who those were? the nerds. Alright - mtv broadcasts a constant array of superficial values, such as constant glorification of popstars, (britney big-tits and the many toughies that proclaim there manliness with gold and bitches,) and over-dramatized "reality shows" with selective and candy-coated representations of what youth across america is growing to believe is how relationships and coping and understanding should be, and soaps like undressed or whatever that attempt to learn kids on social conflicts and such they theyll come to face, but instead these soaps just amplify the over-general preconceptions (ahem, or misconceptions) that kids have about these trials and tribulations. but hey! thank god every other month they have a "news" broadcast on the hardships of being anorexic (which, oddly, doesnt mention the outstanding amount of media influence on the subject) or being a lesbian or being an addict or being a fucking midget THANK GOD they have these shows to prevent the youth from falling into any of these traps, or from not understanding the shame they feel about being different from other kids, the origin of which for SOME reason is left un-touched. So how do my two expose's tie in together? a developing mind is formed by its environment. the three main influences in this mind's environment are basically parents, friends, and the media. The media has a direct effect on the friends, thus making the influence from friends that much stronger. With these two influences growing in a cooperation with one another that one side seems to be more aware of than the other, the third influence, parents, has little room to make an impact. So think of this - forced to go to school and abide by schools rules, forced to abide by their parents rules, kids naturally search for a seperate system to conform to so they have a sense of government independant from that which it has become ever so popular to ignore (not only the us government, but the influence of parental figures and school figures.) now you have pop culture reverberating through the minds of kids, and thus being released into there interaction, with a little peer guidance, pop culture (which, by the way, is at the fingertips of mtv) is a very conveniant system to conform to. what now? americas youth answering to and living alot of there life by the values of a culture which thrives off the fact that kids are submitting themselves to it. Conclusion? Merry Christmas, mtv, you get john doe's soul, wrapped and decorated with a fucking bow.

Cynthetiq · 05-23-2003, 03:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by gassedicycle155
cynthetiq - your absolutely right that Mtv has very effective means of business... this may seem out of proportion, but so does the fucking tobacco industry. Smoking has always been an mvp in pop culture, and thats why its so damn common. I know, i know, my body my choice and all that shit.. but i was in a class made up of 1-2 kids from each school in the surrounding area (or most of, anyway), total about 20 kids, and 5 of us didnt smoke. guess who those were? the nerds. Alright - mtv broadcasts a constant array of superficial values, such as constant glorification of popstars, (britney big-tits and the many toughies that proclaim there manliness with gold and bitches,) and over-dramatized "reality shows" with selective and candy-coated representations of what youth across america is growing to believe is how relationships and coping and understanding should be, and soaps like undressed or whatever that attempt to learn kids on social conflicts and such they theyll come to face, but instead these soaps just amplify the over-general preconceptions (ahem, or misconceptions) that kids have about these trials and tribulations. but hey! thank god every other month they have a "news" broadcast on the hardships of being anorexic (which, oddly, doesnt mention the outstanding amount of media influence on the subject) or being a lesbian or being an addict or being a fucking midget THANK GOD they have these shows to prevent the youth from falling into any of these traps, or from not understanding the shame they feel about being different from other kids, the origin of which for SOME reason is left un-touched. So how do my two expose's tie in together? a developing mind is formed by its environment. the three main influences in this mind's environment are basically parents, friends, and the media. The media has a direct effect on the friends, thus making the influence from friends that much stronger. With these two influences growing in a cooperation with one another that one side seems to be more aware of than the other, the third influence, parents, has little room to make an impact. So think of this - forced to go to school and abide by schools rules, forced to abide by their parents rules, kids naturally search for a seperate system to conform to so they have a sense of government independant from that which it has become ever so popular to ignore (not only the us government, but the influence of parental figures and school figures.) now you have pop culture reverberating through the minds of kids, and thus being released into there interaction, with a little peer guidance, pop culture (which, by the way, is at the fingertips of mtv) is a very conveniant system to conform to. what now? americas youth answering to and living alot of there life by the values of a culture which thrives off the fact that kids are submitting themselves to it. Conclusion? Merry Christmas, mtv, you get john doe's soul, wrapped and decorated with a fucking bow.

your analysis is the best thought out one I've read. Check out the Merchants of Cool. I've provided a link to the streaming video, it's about 1 hour. Watch it. It points out and supports just what you are talking about. It's question is about the cycle, along the art imitates life imitates art imitates life. Chicken and the egg syndrome, but here each time the new chicken becomes more eggsagerated and the egg becomes more eggsagerated.

buffto · 05-24-2003, 06:27 PM

TRL.......ugh. And i don't hate Carson Daly. He does a good job on late night NBC. In fact, he tells all the girls that they don't have to scream after they request a song and that he actually prefers that they didn't, but they still do it.

04-21-2003, 02:15 PM	#1 (permalink)
Ambition Insane Location: Miami, FL	Opinions on MTV ( I know this is going to stir up poop ) I think I'm going to further comment after I get some feedback. But I'd like to say that they can the good shows and keep the crappy ones. Few things to maybe thing about: - Do they send out conflicting messages? (anti-drug/anti-whatever then condone it with the party lifestyle they film as "real life") - Are they trend setters? or trend followers(see whats hip and commercialize it) - Are their "Real World" shows real? ( realistic or set up ) - Why are they Music Television and it's the last thing they play. - Why do they can the shows that are usually more liked, at least by the people that I talk to. Whatever else you feel like bringing up. __________________ Looking for answers to questions that can't be answered.

04-21-2003, 02:44 PM	#4 (permalink)
Ambition Insane Location: Miami, FL	Awesome, I'm getting some well though out responses on this. Kick ass, Want to hear more. __________________ Looking for answers to questions that can't be answered.

04-21-2003, 03:06 PM	#5 (permalink)
KillerYoda The Original Emo Gangsta Location: Sixth Floor, Texas School Book Depository	MTV has pretty much become a new way too keep up the poser lifestyle. All they show anymore is rap, then break formula for a month or so to showcase music that came out months ago so moron can go out and buy it, then ruin it for the people who liked it all along. Pretty much, MTV kills music by showcasing it nowadays. __________________ "So you're Chekov, huh? Well, this here's McCoy. Find a Spock, we got us an away team."

04-21-2003, 03:14 PM	#6 (permalink)
World's King Here Location: Denver City Denver	MTV raised me. I still hate it __________________ heavy is the head that wears the crown

04-21-2003, 03:37 PM	#7 (permalink)
PorscheBunny Insane	MTV started sucking when they started showing more "shows" than videos. The Real World isn't real, duh. MTV is now followers, not leaders, as they've been since about 1996 and probably earlier. __________________ This post has been sanitized for your protection by the Ministry of Information of Oceania.

04-21-2003, 02:39 PM	#3 (permalink)
fearofmear Insane Location: Florida	They have editorials denouncing the lack of good music, for which they are a major cause of. They don't show any fucking videos except horrible rap ( I like rap, just hate the hip pop shit they show). I would say they are the trend followers. They haven't help break a good music act since Nirvana. One thing that I still get pissed about was when the war in Iraq started. They had frigging Fred Durst on pontificating about the meaning of it all. I wanted to shot my TV for that. Let's not forget MTV's liberal leanings also.

04-21-2003, 04:29 PM	#9 (permalink)
Zotz There's someone in my head, but its not me	I remember when it first started and they played rock videos ALL the time. The same ones over and over. It was fantastic. PorscheBunny is right by saying that it started sucking when they put more shows on than videos.

04-21-2003, 04:30 PM	#10 (permalink)
BBtB ClerkMan! Location: Tulsa, Ok.	MTV are combination followers and leaders. I mean they never come up with an original idea but when they take an idea and use it becomes a "thing" I hardly ever watch mtv enough to care anymore. All I ever do is SOMETIMES watch it late at night when they are playing videos. __________________ Meridae'n once played "death" at a game of chess that lasted for over two years. He finally beat death in a best 34 out of 67 match. At that time he could ask for any one thing and he could wish for the hope of all mankind... he looked death right in the eye and said ... "I would like about three fiddy"

04-21-2003, 07:15 PM	#11 (permalink)
K-Billy Banned Location: Dayton	MTV is to music as KFC is to chicken. -Lewis Black

04-21-2003, 08:55 PM	#12 (permalink)
richeee Go Packers! (sigh!) Location: The Lovely Emerald City	I was going to quote Ambition's post, then I read all the other posts, and I don't know how to quote ALL!!! I agree with all of the previous and I have EVERY right to say: MTV SUCKS!!!! I worked for MTV during day 1, and sadly watched the demise of the goals/dreams/intentions. So much potential lost! John Sykes sold his soul! __________________ Pas le cri, le coeur de Minx! .... Where can I stare now?.........I did!!!What about You?

04-22-2003, 02:19 AM	#13 (permalink)
finally Upright	While I can't exactly stand MTv, I have one word of vindication: "Daria."

04-22-2003, 03:52 AM	#14 (permalink)
sixate Registered User Location: Somewhere in Ohio	MTV is spoon fed bullshit that a huge portion of the population eats at an unbelievable rate. They haven't played more music than stupid shows in a day in at least 10-12 years. That's hardly Music TV. All they do is show dumb reality shows and other mindless crap. I'll never understand why people watch it. I couldn't even tell you who any of the current VJ's are on that station. The only thing that I like about pop music are all the hot little blondes that run around wearing next to nothing. Don't even get me started on boy bands.

04-22-2003, 05:46 AM	#15 (permalink)
Reese Delicious	one word... FUSE! Formally Much Music! The only show I DONT watch on MMUSA is Behind the music that sucks.. because well.. it sucks. I can watch Uranium ALL day long. Julia is SO hot. MTV has been going down hill since they pulled Bevis and butthead. They are all PC now sending mixxed messages like drugs are bad then showing how good of a time you can have at spring break with binge drinking girls and X users. Blah Real world really depends on the definition of "real" it might not be scripted but all that crap they do is encouraged and probally rewarded. MTV2 used to be good but now they have no variety. The last week all I've seen on is The Wrap with a wannabe metal fan Ian robbison and I look like a nerd indie rocker Gideon Yaggo. Hiphop shows about 17 hours out of the day and a 10 hour long marathon of stuff about madonna played at least once a day for the last week. Thats not music, its torture! __________________ “It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry

04-22-2003, 06:52 AM	#16 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	Having worked at MTV for the past 6 years (I was lucky to work on Beavis and Buttheand and Daria) I have some insight that I can shed on the creative side and other pieces that can bring you a different perspective. Since I'm currently holed up in the hospital for the moment, I'll put together a comprehensive post in a bit of a collection of websites that really give a good picture of how MTV operates and what it is really trying try to accomplish. Originally Artelevision asked me about some of this in a PM and I was trying to formulate an educated response, so I thought it would be best to post it for everyone. __________________ 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 08:56 AM..

04-22-2003, 08:32 AM	#17 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	MTV Article #1 I've had the privilege to meet with Tom Freston one on one in the office and at his home, he's a very down to earh private man. He's also an exception as far as CEOs are concerened. He's very interested in the people who work for them and it's very apparent in this article. excerpt from Wall Street Journal LESSONS FROM MTV MTV CEO Tom Freston told The Wall Street Journal's "Boss Talk" how MTV stays tuned in to teens (3/21/00). But remove "teens" and his lessons apply to any business. Freston advises you to: Do as much consumer research as possible. Develop a staff and culture inherently interested in what you do. Encourage ideas from the bottom up by making your business a fun place to work. Don't follow your market as they grow older. Focus on the next generation. To encourage ideas from the bottom up, Freston says that he tries to give MTV a "sense of smallness." "The idea is this is still a boutique... where someone can make a difference." About today's teens, Freston says they "travel with two passports." While they are international in their awareness, their local world is increasingly more important. __________________ 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!

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..

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..

04-22-2003, 08:51 AM	#20 (permalink)
holtmate Flailing White Boy Location: Cincinnati	everything on MTV has become watered down... I love their "spanking new music" weeks where they "debut" acts like the Donnas who have been around for years... It's just a mess of "original" programming with 2 or 3 hours of videos thrown in during the day... __________________ "Give her your coat" "Why me?" "Because you're perfect." "You have a point there."

04-22-2003, 08:54 AM	#21 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	MTV Article #4 Watch the PBS: Frontline: Merchants of Cool. It's a good view of what it's like within the research and marketing of what's cool MTV style. __________________ 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!

04-22-2003, 07:04 PM	#23 (permalink)
laconic1 Junkie	I can't stand MTV anymore. I'm at the high end of "the demo" at 23, but the whole network irritates me. TRL? If I remember right when it started it was a half hour show that played 5 videos in their entirety? Now the last I saw it, it is three times longer, only shows ten videos, and shows none of them in their entirety. And don't even get me started on Carson Daly.

04-22-2003, 07:14 PM	#24 (permalink)
Mutant X Crazy Location: Miami,Fl	I no longer watch the channel unless im in the company of those who are watching it's programming. I'll only tune in again later this year when they air the new Spider-Man series, otherwise i'd like to think i have enough common sense not to watch a channel comprised of 24 hours of turds being flung at my tv screen.

04-22-2003, 07:15 PM	#25 (permalink)
Tophat665 Minion of the scaléd ones Location: Northeast Jesusland	Real People have Jobs. Real People pay Rent. MTV hasn't played 10 minutes of watchable programming back to back since they canned Liquid Television. They had already stopped providing their raison d'etre - music - long since. __________________ Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

04-22-2003, 08:28 PM	#26 (permalink)
yournamehere Invisible Location: tentative, at best	It seems their target audience gets younger each year. Or is it just me getting older? __________________ If you want to avoid 95% of internet spelling errors: "If your ridiculous pants are too loose, you're definitely going to lose them. Tell your two loser friends over there that they're going to lose theirs, too." It won't hurt your fashion sense, either.

04-24-2003, 10:20 AM	#28 (permalink)
Hycdubg Insane Location: Up my ass	MTV is a farce, or it is as long as they still have Music Television as their acronym. With all the reality shows and shit, they should change their name to Sexually Depressed Hormonal College Students TV. Get back to the music MTV, and stuff besides the top 10 requested songs. I can't take much more 50 cent. __________________ Alice, that dog has been licking his own asshole for three hours. I would venture to say that there is nothing there that requires more than an hour's attention. So I would suggest that whatever he's attempting to dislodge is either gone for good....or there to stay. -The Long Kiss Goodnight_

04-24-2003, 11:13 AM	#29 (permalink)
GSRIDER spurt king Location: Out of my mind	Ok... I see it now.... basically MTV is Sesame Street for teens and the ultra hip. Once you're too old it's time to move over to VH1 or CMT? Until finally you're just not cracked up for all that noise those kids are making now-a-days. Lord nows I spent a good amount of time on my ass watching it in the 80's... what happened to Headbangers Ball is what I want to know....... I couldn't afford to leave Minnesota for Spring Break so I just watched MTVs. Now I never watch it. Discovery Channel, Comedy Central, ESPN and SCI Fi are my goto entertainments __________________ No signature at this time.

04-24-2003, 05:31 PM	#30 (permalink)
ARTelevision I change Location: USA	Oh dude this is fantastic! Thanks for the inside scoop, cynthetiq!!! I'll post here occasionally as I digest your ongoing digest. Thanks so much... __________________ create evolution

04-24-2003, 06:34 PM	#31 (permalink)
Silentdreamer Upright Location: Morehead, Ky	MTV has gone down hill in recent years.... It used to be the coolest, but it has gotten outta hand. They should go back to playing videos....I can never catch a video on MTV unless it is the same 10 over and over.

04-24-2003, 08:32 PM	#32 (permalink)
Johnny Rotten lost and found Location: Berkeley	It ain't "Music" Television anymore, that's for sure. Maybe it's because music started to suck after grunge started showing gray hairs and Pearl Jam, the strongest icon of the movement, refused to do any other videos after "Jeremy." They poured on the shows, and they were and are, for the most part, quite good. It's easy to hate an organization that chases after youth culture trends--just realize that good music doesn't last forever and eventually the programming blocks have to be filled up with better content. One can only take so much Creed, boy bands, and over-the-top gangsta rap. Granted, shows like Real World and Road Rules overstayed their welcome long past sanity, but then they have some awesome cartoons. Or so I've heard--I haven't watched more than half an hour of programming in years. For the record, I got tired of it before I went to college, as did most of my peers. __________________ "The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine

04-24-2003, 08:52 PM	#33 (permalink)
Grondar Junkie Location: Pa, USA	I honestly don't watch MTV (or VH1) for that matter. I never really got too interested in music videos, and instead really enjoy listening to music. I love listening to music, but I just never got interested in music videos, and thus rarely watch(ed) MTV. I have tuned into the station a few times to catch Tough Enough and the occasional spring break special, but other than that, I rarely watch MTV. __________________ "Yes, I rather like this God fellow. He's very theatrical, you know, a pestilence here, a plague there. Omnipotence. Gotta get me some of that." -Stewie

04-26-2003, 12:37 PM	#34 (permalink)
brandon11983 Stereophonic Location: Chitown!!	i prefer muchmusic a lot more. i feel this way because i like music. i could give a shit less about a bunch of brats living together. plus, even when mtv does play videos, they are never what i want to see. i'm a metal head, and uranium on mmusa caters to us. __________________ Well behaved women rarely make history.

04-29-2003, 12:48 PM	#35 (permalink)
warrrreagl pinche vato Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton	I was 20 when MTV came on the air, and our cable system carried it within the first six months. By 1984, I had given up on it, because it got boring. __________________ Living is easy with eyes closed.

04-29-2003, 08:20 PM	#36 (permalink)
BobaClark Banned Location: Simi Valley, CA	As someone who is in that high-school generation who should be watching MTV right now, all I can say is, I'm tired of the "Real World." I agree with the idea that they should change their name. They do occasionally have good music on though. But one can only take so much 50-cent. All I can say is...thank god for CDs.

04-29-2003, 09:27 PM	#37 (permalink)
wordssmith22 Crazy	none of the music channels (mtv, bet, cmc) play the videos for songs i enjoy listening to since my music doesn't involve selling out your soul. the shows on mtv aren't all that bad, but i don't understand why they show shows that are still airing on other networks. they show that crappy fastlane which is on fox and what appears to be equaly crappy platinum which is on upn.

05-22-2003, 10:52 PM	#38 (permalink)
gassedicycle155 Upright	cynthetiq - your absolutely right that Mtv has very effective means of business... this may seem out of proportion, but so does the fucking tobacco industry. Smoking has always been an mvp in pop culture, and thats why its so damn common. I know, i know, my body my choice and all that shit.. but i was in a class made up of 1-2 kids from each school in the surrounding area (or most of, anyway), total about 20 kids, and 5 of us <u>didnt</u> smoke. guess who those were? the nerds. Alright - mtv broadcasts a constant array of superficial values, such as constant glorification of popstars, (britney big-tits and the many toughies that proclaim there manliness with gold and bitches,) and over-dramatized "reality shows" with selective and candy-coated representations of what youth across america is growing to believe is how relationships and coping and understanding <i>should be</i>, and soaps like undressed or whatever that attempt to learn kids on social conflicts and such they theyll come to face, but instead these soaps just amplify the over-general preconceptions (ahem, or misconceptions) that kids have about these trials and tribulations. but hey! <b>thank god</b> every other month they have a "news" broadcast on the hardships of being anorexic (which, oddly, doesnt mention the outstanding amount of media influence on the subject) or being a lesbian or being an addict or being a fucking midget THANK GOD they have these shows to prevent the youth from falling into any of these traps, or from not understanding the shame they feel about being different from other kids, the origin of which <i>for SOME reason</i> is left un-touched. So how do my two expose's tie in together? a developing mind is formed by its environment. the three main influences in this mind's environment are basically parents, friends, and the media. The media has a direct effect on the friends, thus making the influence from friends that much stronger. With these two influences growing in a cooperation with one another that one side seems to be more aware of than the other, the third influence, parents, has little room to make an impact. So think of this - forced to go to school and abide by schools rules, forced to abide by their parents rules, kids naturally search for a seperate system to conform to so they have a sense of government independant from that which it has become ever so popular to ignore (not only the us government, but the influence of parental figures and school figures.) now you have pop culture reverberating through the minds of kids, and thus being released into there interaction, with a little peer guidance, pop culture (which, by the way, is at the fingertips of mtv) is a very conveniant system to conform to. what now? americas youth answering to and living alot of there life by the values of a culture which thrives off the fact that kids are submitting themselves to it. Conclusion? Merry Christmas, mtv, you get john doe's soul, wrapped and decorated with a fucking bow. __________________ "ive learned not to feed the hand that bites me"

05-24-2003, 06:27 PM	#40 (permalink)
buffto Crazy Location: Missouri	TRL.......ugh. And i don't hate Carson Daly. He does a good job on late night NBC. In fact, he tells all the girls that they don't have to scream after they request a song and that he actually prefers that they didn't, but they still do it.