As rumored last week, MTV is going to once again try to silence those online cranks who whine about there being no music in the channel’s lineup—this time with a whole 24 hours of music-devoted programming a week!
Today (!) the channel launched AMTV, which will occupy the 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. block from Monday through Thursday; it’ll air videos, live performances, and other music-related bits of programming. (My various cable boxes gave the time slot the very unsexy name “Music Programming,” although perhaps that branding issue will be worked out in the coming days.) Since I missed the debut installment by about 90 minutes, I wasn’t able to see if the videos were played straight or in FNMTV-style, with eight million things going on around the clip so as to keep the ADD-addled youth of today interested for longer than half a second. The news that Unplugged is coming back as part of the new initiative may indicate a taste for somewhat longer-form programming, though:
“If we take ‘Unplugged,’ which our audience still knows and loves, and do a four-minute version after our highest-rated program in prime time, and then we say, ‘You can get it all immediately on MTV.com or see the full thing for the next four days in the morning,’ we’re going to have a lot more people watching,” he said.
How many more people? Well, the block won’t be measured by Nielsen. Luckily for MTV, though, “awareness” is currency that advertising companies still accept!
Mr. Friedman acknowledged that music had not always drawn “the level of viewership we hope for,” but nonetheless he said, “we know our audience wants more of it.”
The “AMTV” hours will not be measured by Nielsen’s ratings service. MTV is calling the morning block a laboratory for advertising partnerships; sometimes a company could sponsor all six hours, and other times it could insert its brand into individual segments.
MTV2 is already dipping its toe into sponsored music content with Green Label Sound, the Mountain Dew-branded MP3 label that specializes in blog-fodder artists like Matt & Kim. (Subterranean frequently has one video that’s “sponsored” by the label/bile-covered pop, although the only giveaway is the slightly askew title graphics bookending the clip.) Whether or not the marketing experiments will take that form remains to be seen, but at the very least this should be somewhat heartening for artists who are wondering where their licensing money could possibly come from now that the car-ad market is drying up.
@Maura Johnston: Everything from Asher Roth (ugh, that video: now I want to punch him even more) to Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘N’ Nite” to the Papa Roach clip Al was just exulting over to that weird 88 Keys “Stay Up” clip that has Kanye West in old-man garb. I mean, do I love all of these songs? No, but I was forced to listen to the Papa Roach song in its entirety and discovered I liked it. This is what MTV is for.
Oh, also a shit-ton of Lonely Island interstitial clips featuring spring break cavorting in bathing suits (some MTV traditions never die), as well at their “I’m on a Boat” clip in its entirety. I assume MTV plays the spring break promo stuff in-between reality shows during prime viewing hours, otherwise why their label pay co-op dollars for all that stuff?
@Maura Johnston: A live-blog of this madness would be awesome. I doubt they’ll play “The Wagon,” though, to their detriment.
@Maura Johnston: A live-blog of this madness would be awesome. I doubt they’ll play “The Wagon,” though, to their detriment.
@Maura Johnston: A live-blog of this madness would be awesome. I doubt they’ll play “The Wagon,” though, to their detriment.
@Maura Johnston: A live-blog of this madness would be awesome. I doubt they’ll play “The Wagon,” though, to their detriment.
@Maura Johnston: A live-blog of this madness would be awesome. I doubt they’ll play “The Wagon,” though, to their detriment.
@Maura Johnston: A live-blog of this madness would be awesome. I doubt they’ll play “The Wagon,” though, to their detriment.
@Maura Johnston: A live-blog of this madness would be awesome. I doubt they’ll play “The Wagon,” though, to their detriment.
My TiVo picked up on part of the the 3 a.m. block over the weekend, and so yesterday I sat around on my couch and watched music videos for a full hour or so. Even with the usual wheat-to-chaff ratio, it was bliss: I really missed being able to do a quick download of current cross-genre mainstream fare.
@Chris Molanphy: What was on the playlist!
I was thinking of live-blogging tomorrow’s installment, because, hey, why not experiment with 3 a.m. pageview-goosing initiatives? We have to have a few insomniacs out there.
As an avid watcher of Subterranean, I can tell you that the most recent “random, useless pop song in the middle of my cherish indie videos” is, sadly, “Poker Face” by Lady GaGa. Another recent one was “The Fear” by Lily Allen, but it kind of fit because Subterranean played “Smile” and “LDN” frequently, and for some reason, alternative radio seems to love Lily Allen.
so am i supposed to stay up all night, or get up early?
@DocStrange: so do top 40 and hot ac, if the allaccess.com reports i got this morning are to be believed.
MTV? Music? (Again?) It’s two days too early for April fool’s.
What does this mean for MTV Hits? The schlock that doesn’t get aired when MTV serves its purpose will be forced onto Hits? I mean, fine, they show the same 4 videos but its the novelty of being an insomniac and letting the TV lull me to sleep via music videos that keeps me watching it.