MTV jettisoned into the teen consciousness back in the Eighties by having a presence on the powerful new platform of cable programming. It was video that killed the radio star back then, but these days, it could be the Web star wielding the knife, and MTV’s on board with another powerful new platform.
See, Toni Basil on a stout-girl pyramid isn’t enough to make the new generation stop in their channel-flipping tracks. And when so many other networks aren’t fully taking advantage or even grasping the transformation taking place, Viacom seems, after a lot of time on the innovating bench, ahead of the game.
Interactivity is the name of said game, and keeping the attention of the ADD generation takes a lot of work. But this is the way all of it is going: completely interwoven content.
In April, MTV is working with Yahoo! to allow users to submit their own movie spoofs as a part of an MTV Movie Awards promotion. One will be selected as the winner of the “Best Movie Spoof—User Generated” award on the show, from five user-nominees.
During the live broadcast on June 3, the awards show will be tied in with Web surfers, whose (edited for content – and always very, very deep) comments will appear on the so-called World Wide Web Wall, or as Downtown Julie Brown used to call it, the wubbawubbawubba.
“Viewers are constantly telling us they want to dig deeper into the content they see on-air, and they are obsessive about following our programming from one platform to the other — and back,” said Christina Norman, President of MTV.
“When the TV show ‘The Hills’ inspires a community of fans to connect with their favorite cast members and devour exclusive content online and on the handset, the payoff for viewers is a more immersive experience all the way around.”
MTV.com streamed 84 million videos in January, and over 85 million in February, this year, increases of over 200 percent year-over-year. On average, the site gets about a million visitors a day.
