Belgian Courts Insist Google Post Legal Ruling

MTV: Still About The M (Well, Sometimes), But Less About The TV, Too?

from the up-next,-real-world-road-rules-challenge-MCMXI dept

Fri, Sep 22nd 2006 1:33pm — Carlo Longino

MTV hardly shows music videos anymore, common thinking goes, instead focusing on mindless reality shows. But the network looks like it's preparing for the day when its cable network isn't the central focus of its business. Despite its rather slow start, MTV is beefing up its online offerings by using its TV programming just as a starting point for further content and interactivity, while today it announced it's buying a video-game company, spending $175 million to buy Harmonix, which develops music-related games, like Guitar Hero (and is a different company than that game's publisher, which is caught in the patent dispute we posted earlier). MTV's made plenty of moves over the years to expand beyond its core cable TV network with various products, founded on the oft-repeated cliche of the last decade that it's not a TV channel, it's a lifestyle brand. Certainly MTV has a strong brand, but it's probably more accurate to say that going forward, the company needs to embrace life as a media company, not as just a TV channel. The focus of its network programming creates a starting point for its brand, and it should build from there -- so buying a company that makes music-related video games is much smarter than buying a company that makes first-person shooters or something else that's less relevant, even though its products might be popular with the same demographic as MTV. Media companies need to be diversified across different media, and be able to reach their audience through a variety of platforms, but they need to make their offerings cohesive. For instance, that's why a MySpace music store makes sense, but a MySpace magazine doesn't.

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17 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2006 @ 1:48pm

Wait...
Doesn't MTV have the right to play all kinds of music videos without paying licensing fees?

Perhaps MTV can leverage that right with Guitar Hero and we can start having all kinds of popular rock songs without the licensing fiasco.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2006 @ 2:39pm

....yeah
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ben(damnit), 22 Sep 2006 @ 2:40pm

whenever licensed music is used, the RIAA will make sure there is a fiasco, unless they (not musicians) get paid.
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4-80-sicks, 22 Sep 2006 @ 2:45pm

It would be much more of a lifestyle company if they played music videos on their TV station and ONLY music videos. I haven't heard "I want my MTV!" lately...nor have I seen any compelling original content.
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4-80-sicks, 22 Sep 2006 @ 2:47pm

...and if they can't even get a television station that they've had for over 20 years right, I'm probably not going to be interested in their other things.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2006 @ 3:22pm

Good luck MTV. Hope you continue to fail.
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Sanguine Dream, 22 Sep 2006 @ 4:20pm

MTV sucks...
It's friday and I just looked at the MTV programming schedule. From fri. 8pm - sat. 8pm it is literally 24hr of "reality" shows. How can a music channel go 24hr of programming without any music? Thats borderline false advertisement...
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Welcome TO America, 22 Sep 2006 @ 5:40pm

All music channels
Besides country music, all the rest of the music channels are headed by jews. The jews have thier own 'slaves' called the black man. This is the end result, to promote every aspect of the 'ideal' black man while making the jews rich.

Either you see it or you don't.
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Celes, 22 Sep 2006 @ 5:52pm

Re: All music channels
...And this has what, exactly, to do with MTV expanding across some new media?
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Eric, 22 Sep 2006 @ 6:32pm

Re: All music channels
You're a fucking idiot. Now back to the subject at hand....

MTV deserves to fail. I watched them all the time when they started in the early '80's up through the mid 90's when they went down the crapper. No music and a bunch of crap reality shows. Reality shows are made exclusively for morons.
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Krz, 22 Sep 2006 @ 6:48pm

They shouldn't do any of those things. MTV ... DIAF!!
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Jim, 22 Sep 2006 @ 7:04pm

Oh Well
We all know that MTV has moved on to showing a bunch of crazy shows that were created to capture an audience of people in their teens. So I say just move on with evolving digital television. Better networks are out there that show nothing but music videos.
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Krum, 24 Sep 2006 @ 2:24am

The positive side....
I can see something positive about MTV. I grew up in the 80's-90's and as a teenager, I thought I would eventually become a rockstar. Now that there's Miscellaneous T.V. our youth will perhaps aspire to become "reality-tv-stars" which is a much more realistic goal. (No pun intended.) Oh wait...that's not positive at all. FAIL MTV!
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JERK, 24 Sep 2006 @ 5:19pm

Genius of MTV
Iit is at the exact point when you complain about MTV you show your too old..

Music videos are coo- One VJ is better than another-, why put on Game shows- why put on cartoons? it is all rap now? An Awards show? No music videos at all? all they do is Reality TV?

The minute you think MTV has gone in the crapper.. is the minute you should realize that your youth is gone.. Your MTV is gone as well as cool clothes, good music and everything is just way too loud.. Shut up old people (and bye the way.. I was too old when they stopped MTV Rocks back in the early 90's.)
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Sep 2006 @ 8:52am

WHAT IS MTV?
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Emerald, 9 Oct 2006 @ 6:32pm

reality TV on MTV
Well, about MTV doing away with music and putting on stupid reality shows... you have to look at the big picture. First ask yourself the question "If no one likes reality shows why do they occur so much on television today?" Then ask yourself the question how do people get impossible statistics like "you swallow eight spiders a year" and "52% of people floss less than once a month."

When you think about this, connect these two thoughts. This reality show thing in my belief is one big GOVERNMENT RESEARCH PROJECT. Think about it MTV and Fox and all the major reality show distributers must be getting large endorsements from the government to conduct HUMAN RESEARCH STUDIES. So in order to recieve funds to the great amount they're receiving now they have to keep up with the reality show facade.

This allows the government to study human behavior in certain situations they can't normally view. They get the most average people that fit a certain profile stick them on the show and sit back and watch... mind you they see more than the thirty minute clips that we the viewers see. They see everything.

Some examples of this are in "Survivor." Obviously a show to see how people act when trying to compete for survival. "Fear Factor" to see how people act when pushed to their limits. You can pretty much apply this to any reality show.

I know this sounds sick. Which it is... but is it anymore sick than people actually wasting their life and watching the shows.
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mary, 9 Sep 2007 @ 6:40pm

outrage
I just wanted to say the comments that person made after Brittany sang was terrible and so wrong it was quite hurtful.
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