MTV remains one of the strongest brands worldwide, but if you were to ask 10 people randomly what MTV stood for, you would get very different answers. I came across a post on MTV’s decline/demise… and I think it speaks volumes about Viacom’s failure to really build on MTV in the 21st century:
Without question, MTV has lost part of the allure that made it so great when people in or around my age group were growing up. I can thank MTV for introducing me to an array of diverse musical acts, from RUN DMC to Guns n Roses to Peter Gabriel to Michael Jackson and NWA. Unlike the current state of affairs, MTV used to be a way to explore new musical genres and be exposed to new artists.
Indeed, MTV is about anything but music. But then again, the music industry is about anything but music these days… this does not mean that music isn’t thriving, it is. It’s just that the metrics that we should measure success by have changed.
What exasperates all of this is that Viacom really failed to position itself for music in the 21st century. Sure, it’s almost a Godsend that it does not own any record labels, but Viacom is increasingly away from the epicenter of music. It’s overnight salvation could have come from MySpace, admittedly, but it lost the Intermix (MySpace’s parent) derby when Fox Interactive Media paid $580M for Intermix which made MySpace fall in Rupert Murdoch’s empire at News Corp.
Oftentimes, in M&A, price is determined by supply and demand and how badly you don’t want something in your opponent’s hands. Judging by MySpace’s stratospheric rise and growth after the sale to News Corp., it is surprising that MySpace “only” fetched $580M…
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January 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I’m not sure that I understand why you feel that MTV is a failure. There’s no doubt that the music has taken a back seat to their various programming, but it’s not because MTV lost its cool factor with the kids, it’s because they changed with the times and are even more relevant today.
I too remember watching various music videos and even today I still use my TiVo to record MTV’s midnight 2 hour video music blocks, but even though I miss real music television, it doesn’t mean I think that the station failed. Some of the programs on MTV are much more entertaining than those 2 hour music blocks even if they don’t allow you to wax nostalgic.
While MTV’s focus may have changed, I think that they’ve built something even more powerful. Considering how many music videos are now online and on demand, I’d say Viacom looks pretty smart right now for sticking with unique programming over the music clips.
January 7th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
MTV stands for Music Television. How much music do you actually get on the network?
Not being a smartass, just stating what I think is the obvious. If you judge by MTV’s history and original mission (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV) you get a sense that it lost its ways… and someone like MySpace stole its thunder.
Frankly, this happens in all media: Rolling Stone magazine lost its way as a magazine… then MTV lost its way as a TV network… will MySpace lose its way as a Web property?
Time will tell.
I am not saying it carries crappy programming (that is highly subjective) nor am I saying it lets advertisers down (maybe I should stress that before Sumner Redstone’s legal machine comes after me) but I don’t think I was saying anything particularly new by saying MTV is a failure, if you judge it by what it spells out and its original mandate, it is.