Case MTV (ASLI).pdf

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MUKTI KHAIRE ELEANOR KENYON

Music and the (Real) World: Thirty Years of MTV In a Manhattan boardroom in January 1981, executives from partners American Express and media conglomerate Warner Communications, Inc. (WCI) watched a clip of a young woman briskly roller-skating down city streets. The dancing figure sported colorful layers of clothing and large, yellow foam headphones; modern beats and clear British rocker voices accompanied her movements. “Roller girl, she’s taking chances,” sang Dire Straits. “Skateaway” was just one of several new music videos screened that day as part of an effort to secure funding for a new music video cable channel concept. 1 John Lack, executive vice president of programming and marketing at cable operator Warner Amex Cable Communications (WACC) envisioned Music Television, or MTV, as a “visual” radio station, a channel whose programming could defy the tightly-structured format of traditional commercial television and be “both promotional, and entertainment for its own sake.” 2 The idea was to show music videos all day, in stereo. The firm had a demographic hole in its programming, and a contemporary music channel that could cater to the elusive youth market would fill that hole. Lack knew promotional music video clips were a cheap and untapped source of visual programming. MTV could introduce audiences to new music not heard on the radio and give advertisers a vehicle for reaching the 12-to-34-year-old audience for album-oriented rock (AOR).3 After listening to the two-and-a-half hour pitch, the WCI executives were still skeptical. The target demographic decidedly excluded the decision makers in the room, and the appeal of “video radio” had yet to be determined. Not only had music never drawn Americans to their television screens, at the time it wasn’t drawing them to record stores either.4 Despite their reservations, Warner’s and Amex’s directors decided to take their chances and invest $20 million in Lack’s concept, which promised to be a force in the communications and entertainment fields. His team would throw out industry rules to develop a channel that possessed “[its] own spirit and personality.”5

Who Needs MTV? The years just before 1981 had seen change and turmoil in the TV and music industries in the United States, and Lack believed his idea for music television had the potential to resuscitate both industries through innovation. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Professor Mukti Khaire and Research Associate Eleanor Kenyon prepared this case. This case was developed from published sources. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2014 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu/educators. This publication may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School.

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Music and the (Real) World: Thirty Years of MTV

The TV Industry Cable television (often known as pay-TV outside the United States) originated in the late 1940s as a means of increasing access to broadcast television across the country. Although regulations initially limited the expansion and adoption of the technology,6 deregulation in the 1970s allowed the commercial potential of cable television to be tested for the first time, while improvements in satellite communications made way for industry growth. 7 Primarily paid for by subscriptions, rather than advertising revenues, cable TV channels were more autonomous (compared to purely ad-supported network programming that was free to viewers), and programmers had to worry less about reaching a broad swath of the population. The development of specialized cable channels in the 1970s, such as HBO, The Movie Channel, ESPN, and Nickelodeon, therefore contributed to the segmentation of American television audiences, providing round-the-clock, specialized content to subscribing viewers. This made cable channels attractive to certain sets of advertisers, who could now target specific demographic groups that comprised niche cable audiences. By 1979, cable television had captured more than 20% of the television market, servicing 15.5 million subscribers. 8 But revenues remained uninspiring because subscription sales had not yet taken off significantly. Furthermore, despite the rise of multiple specialized channels, there was no channel that catered directly to the young adult viewer.

The Music Industry The music industry originated in live performances, both formal and informal. Commercial forces began to influence musical tastes beginning with the sale of Tin Pan Alley sheet music in the 1880s. In the first half of the twentieth century, both the diversity of the music people listened and danced to, as well as the means of access to music, increased. Musical exposure was no longer limited to live performance; radio played a large role in introducing audiences to new genres and in solidifying regional tastes, while phonographs allowed records to be played at home. In the 1950s, radio stations and their disc jockeys (or deejays) solidified their role as the music industry’s gatekeepers, controlling the tracks played on stations, introducing local audiences to new sounds, and correspondingly instigating record sales. By this time, the music industry had become synonymous with the record industry, and musicians seeking commercial success had to find a manager, purchase equipment, secure a contract with a record label, and locate a producer.9 Record companies sought out artists who could generate revenue through the sale of records and published music, as well as live appearances. 10 As the century progressed, American audiences developed distinct preferences along generational, geographic, and racial lines, creating multiple separate music markets. While record sales had totaled $5.5 million in 1933, the postwar consumer culture and a proliferation of albums helped raise revenues to $189 million by 1950.11 The birth of rock ‘n’ roll music in the mid-1950s heralded in an era of further growth for the music industry. The genre had its origins in African American rhythm and blues (R&B) and rural country music, and its sound resonated with a burgeoning youth culture while inspiring protest and fear among many adults, who were wary of rebellion and hedonism. But, as one record label founder said, “Too much money was at stake for personal taste to get in the way.” 12 Teen idol Elvis Presley and his rock ‘n’ roll cohort showed that the genre was lucrative. Moreover, the spread of technology enabled the new rock culture’s growth. By 1955, there were 120 million radio receivers and 24 million phonographs in America, and the music spread over radio’s AM airwaves and through records.13 Radio stations embraced the sound, and rock ‘n’ roll record sales leapt from 214 million in 1954 to 603

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million in 1959.14 By 1960, record sales reached $600 million, with the industry growing approximately 20% each year up to the 1970s.15 Independent record labels in the late 1950s had promoted musical innovation, but the industry consolidated over the course of the 1960s, with media conglomerates purchasing record companies, production companies, and management companies. a Distribution practices altered available content, too. While independent stores run by individuals with different tastes had been responsible for selling records in the 1950s, by the 1970s consolidation among distributors and widespread adoption of wholesale practices homogenized the music industry.16 Record companies focused on creating and marketing products with broad appeal. Though these shifts restructured the music industry to focus on profits, in 1970, less than 10% of the 4,000 albums and 5,700 singles released broke even. 17 Radio station playlists too became increasingly conservative and homogenous. The advent of Top 40 radio in 1955 had already decreased deejay autonomy, while the stations’ increased reliance on published industry charts made it more difficult to break a new record on air.18b Young audiences continued to embrace pop music, however, and the 78-rpm single made way for stereo recordings; cassette decks joined record players in bringing music to consumers. The soundtrack from the movie Saturday Night Fever alone sold more than 20 million copies in 1977 and 1978 and solidified disco as a musical genre.19 But a four-year recession came on the heels of the disco craze: record industry gross revenues dropped from $4.31 billion in 1978 to $3.6 billion in 1981,20 and record companies were estimated to have fired more than 2,000 employees in 1980 and 1981.21 The recession was attributed to many factors, including the uncertain future of rock, a slow economy, and increased interest in other forms of media.22 While radio stations had previously aired new music concepts, in the late 1970s they had begun to play old tunes, depriving listeners of contemporary fare, which likely exacerbated the suffering in the record industry. The practice of airing entire albums on the radio in an era in which blank tapes and cassette recorders and players had gained widespread currency had enabled audiences to record music at home, which further contributed to the decline in sales of music records.23

“I Want My MTV” John Lack came to WCI in 1979 with a strong background in broadcasting and sales; he was expected to develop new television programming that would increase the market share of WCI’s cable division to bring it out of the red.24 In his professional and personal roles as a media executive and music lover, Lack understood the recession faced by the record industry and rock ‘n’ roll’s potential to reach young audiences. In late 1979, he began to explore the concept of creating a music video program. Even before the decline, in the early 1970s, record companies had begun to search for new means to promote their artists. Concert tours, which were the default promotional vehicle, had become expensive for all parties involved. Concert promoters needed significant capital to organize events, and artists spent large sums traveling on tour. Music fans protested ticket prices.25 While in the 1970s,

a While 41 firms had Top 10 hits in 1962, 21 found such commercial success in 1971. (John Mundy, Popular music on screen: From

the Hollywood musical to music video (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 1999), pp. 208–209.) b “All they give you is 15 minutes to promote maybe 20 singles and 15 albums,” one record company promoter said in the

early 1970s. (R. Serge Denisoff, Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1975), p. 253.)




bands such as the Beach Boys might have been guaranteed $25,000 a night in profits, singer or songwriter artists such as James Taylor had a guarantee of $15,000 and lesser-known acts would receive significantly less.26 Video clips, which were single-camera recordings of concerts that were subsequently edited, emerged as a cheaper alternative to the concert tour. These low-budget promotional clips were commissioned by international record companies to show in music stores, nightclubs, and TV ads and on European TV shows, which broke new music more easily than did European radio stations.27 Before pitching his idea to WCI executives, Lack did some groundwork. He commissioned Mike Nesmith, a former member of the 1960s band The Monkees, to produce 50 half-hour video clips of rock music for a proposed Nickelodeon (a channel that featured children’s programming) show, Pop Clips.28 The program premiered in 1980. Though the network soon dropped it, Nesmith’s show was an early model for what a music-video channel could look like. Lack also hired Robert Pittman, a 29year-old “media wizard,” to lead the “visual radio” project in 1980. At the time, Pittman was already heading up Warner-Amex’s Movie Channel and its pay-TV division, but he had experience in the music world as well, having demonstrated programming and research skills at NBC radio stations in Chicago and New York earlier in his career.29 Eight months after the pitch by Lack, Nesmith, and Pittman was approved, MTV, a 24-hour music channel, was launched on August 1, 1981. Central to the launch of MTV was the task of creating its look and feel. MTV became what one channel executive called “the most researched channel in history.” 30After receiving funding, Lack and his team resurrected Sight on Sound, a 90-minute music video show that had aired on the interactive QUBE cable system that allowed subscribers to register their opinions about the on-screen program by squeezing a button connected to their television sets, in order to zero in on a target demographic for MTV.31 They found that the music video viewer was most likely to be a “twentythree, twenty-four-year-old educated, affluent, suburban” individual. 32 With this profile in mind, Pittman and his team worked on marketing, promotion, and finding content and talent that would resonate with the target demographic.33 A bold, color-changing MTV logo with a television was drafted. Auditions were held to find five young, casually hip “veejays.” 34 But Pittman also needed the support of record companies, advertisers, and cable television distributors to launch MTV. The proposed model relied on specialized video content provided at no cost by record companies. Pittman spoke with record company officials and video producers, investigating the potential for music video clips, but the companies were not convinced that specially produced, expensive videos (not just the recordings of concerts they had been making) would improve record sales. One music executive described the fear within the industry at the time: “Endorsing a new project which would cost money was like jumping off the Capitol Tower.”35 Major record labels entertained the idea of the collaboration with MTV, but none fully embraced it; according to the president of RCA Records, “Everyone played a little at first. But no one really dove in.”36 MTV was also a tough sell on Madison Avenue, as advertisers were still uncertain of the potential of cable. Cable operators, too, would be taking risks in distribution, as they would have to replace one of their existing 12 channels with MTV. Many operator executives were outside the target demographic, and were indifferent to rock or music videos and had little interest in the channel. To tackle the channel concept’s challenges, executives launched a campaign in the press. “We’re combining the best of radio—music and stereo sound—and the best of TV—the pictures—to give viewers something they can’t get anywhere else,” Lack told the Los Angeles Times in 1981.37



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“Ladies and Gentlemen! Rock and Roll!”c Just after midnight on August 1, 1981, a doctored shot of Neil Armstrong planting an MTV flag on the moon played on thousands of television screens across America. The image made way for a video clip of the Buggles’ 1979 hit “Video Killed the Radio Star,” with exploding radio sets and rock-androll beats. MTV premiered on 225 cable systems in 2.1 million homes.38 At the time, the channel had no more than 125 clips in its library and had sold only 30% of available advertising time, mostly to soft drink and clothing companies and film distributors. 39d Notably absent from cable networks in cultural capitals New York and Los Angeles, the channel nonetheless aired in midwestern and southern cities, and by the end of the month was seen in 2.5 million households across the country. 40 In its early phases, MTV’s creative team tweaked the channel’s format to exude looseness and what Rolling Stone termed a “what-the-hell, let’s-boogie” mood.41 In contrast to the segmentation of traditional television, 80% of MTV’s programming consisted of a flow of video clips introduced by veejays. The few clips in its library were mostly by little-known artists, as record companies were hesitant, and MTV unable, to produce new material. Though Pittman and Lack had confidence in the format, not everybody was as optimistic about the music video. At MTV’s launch, rock journalists feared that the medium would detract from the experience of music itself and force a visual narrative on music listeners. 42 Both liberal and conservative groups criticized MTV videos, with charges of sexism and racism on the one hand, and inappropriate and offensive content on the other. Much of this criticism echoed perceptions of rock ‘n’ roll music more generally. Many feared that music videos would normalize violence or concepts of gender roles. Pittman retaliated, “[Songs] have a dark message. It’s the essence of rock.” 43 Despite its initially low national profile, MTV garnered early viewer acceptance and soon demonstrated that music videos could both enthrall viewers and sell records and products. A Billboard magazine survey conducted in October 1981, just weeks after the launch of the channel, found an increase in the sales of tapes and records in regions carrying MTV cable signals. 44 A 1982 Nielsen survey reported that 85% of participants watched the channel, each averaging 4.6 hours per week, and 63% said that viewing a clip had precipitated the purchase of an artist’s album.45 Daily Variety in 1983 found that “MTV viewers are more influenced [in their purchase of records] by the cable music channel than by radio, concerts, or commercial TV.” 46 Said one member of Duran Duran, “MTV was instrumental in breaking us in America.”47 According to one founder, “When we launched, all the artists would be watching and ringing their record companies and saying, ‘How come I’m not on this thing?’”48 On-air promotions were launched to attract larger audiences. “I want my MTV,” clamored John Mellencamp, Stevie Nicks, Hall and Oates, and David Bowie in advertisements in 1982, as part of a promotional campaign to encourage cable distributors to pick up the network. e Lack pitched MTV as a means of increasing household subscribers and encouraging adoption of stereo-sound technology. c John Lack, introducing MTV, August 1, 1981. d Though spots were priced at $1,200 per minute at the get-go, advertisers reportedly bought them for rates as low as $350 per

minute. (David J. Benjack and J. Michael MacKeen, “MTV Networks: MTV,” in New Product Success Stories: Lessons from Leading Innovators, ed. Robert J. Thomas (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995), p. 283.) e In 1982, the artists had all achieved star status. That year, Mellencamp released American Fool, with “Hurts So Good” and

“Jack and Diane.” Stevie Nicks had launched her solo career the year before, after her success with Fleetwood Mac in the 1970s. Hall and Oates had made their mark on the charts in the late 1970s; Private Eyes (1981) and H2O (1982) were back-to-back Top 10 albums. David Bowie was a household name by MTV’s debut; in 1981, he had partnered with Queen to release “Under Pressure.”




By December 1983, the channel reached 22% of all American households with televisions, or 18 million households, more than double the 1982 figures.49 That year, holdout cable systems in New York City and Los Angeles began offering the channel, solidifying MTV’s presence on the cultural map. Young adults across the nation could watch the same music videos, form opinions on the same new artists, feel kinship with the same veejays, and, in ironic contrast to the counterculture connotations of some rock music, be exposed to the same products through national ad campaigns. Advertising revenue in MTV’s first 18 months came to a total of $7 million. 50 While Pepsi-Cola and Ford Motor Company had signed on to advertise in 1981, Procter & Gamble, General Foods, Dr. Pepper, Wendy’s, Swatch, Doritos, Miller Beer, and Nabisco soon followed suit, convinced that the channel was a way to reach the 12-to-34-year-old demographic.51 In 1983, at least 140 companies, selling 240 products, advertised on the channel, generating revenues of $25 million.52 It took MTV three years to show a profit, and five years to break even, but in its ascent, it made the music video a cultural staple that blurred the lines between entertainment, art, and advertising. 53 Advertisers used recording artists to sell products, and movie producers began to exploit the music video medium, creating TV spots and whole films that mimicked MTV’s content. The 1983 film Flashdance was allegedly inspired by MTV. The visual element of videos allowed stars like Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, and bands like U2 to polish their images, selling themselves and their music, and also gave middle-of-the-road artists a shot at fame.54 One director of music videos said, “[MTV] saved the music industry.”55 As a relatively new format, the music video had no established guidelines. Said one director, in 1983, “[V]ideo has no ground rules. . . . [T]here are none to break or not break. . . . You want to tell a story.”56 Filmmakers and fashion photographers began to direct the increasingly elaborate productions, which adopted non-narrative, narrative, pastiche, social critique, and parody forms.57 The music industry, skeptical at first, could no longer afford to ignore the video format. By the time the first MTV Video Music Awards were held in 1984, some record companies were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars producing music video content. Fortune estimated that record companies that year spent a total of $100 million on 2,000 clips, three times more than had been produced in 1981.58 MTV mimics, hoping to capitalize on the emerging visual radio medium, surfaced in the years following the channel’s launch. To undercut attempts from NBC’s Friday Night Videos, Ted Turner’s Cable Music Channel, USA’s “Night Flight,” and Black Entertainment TV to gain market share, Pittman paid six major record labels for short-term, exclusive airing rights to music videos. 59

“It’s the Format” When you’re dealing with a music culture—say, people aged 12 to 30—music serves as something beyond entertainment. It’s really a peg they use to identify themselves. It’s representative of their values and their culture. — Robert Pittman60 Record companies’ embrace of the music video gave MTV greater power and the flexibility to choose its content and tweak its formula, all the while keeping in mind the tastes of the target demographic, mostly white 18-to-34-year-old suburbanites interested in AOR and adultcontemporary music. MTV programmers and executives were only so willing to push boundaries. At the 1981 Billboard Video Music Conference, Pittman had outlined MTV’s AOR-focused programming as a business decision: “You can‘t go too far into black music or country music or easy listening or you’ll alienate your target audience, which is interested in rock.”61 The geographic span of the 6 This document is authorized for use only by iin. mayasari in 2015.


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channel meant that content had to have a broad appeal. “We have to play music we think an entire country is going to like,” one MTV representative contended in 1983.62 MTV executives repeatedly defended programming decisions by declaring the channel merely to be a reflector of the tastes of their target demographic (internally called the “demo”), 85% of which, in 1981, preferred rock music.63 The MTV corporate philosophy of cable “narrowcasting” was similar to the rigid nature of radio programming in the early 1980s, which had developed after decades of records being marketed along demographic lines. Genre distinctions came to have racial implications; by the end of the 1970s, “black music” and “white music” had become accepted phrases. But the fluidity of music as a medium made such distinctions dangerous. As the head of one record company said of AOR radio, “You can’t tell me that you can play Culture Club and Hall and Oates, the imitators, and not play the originators.”64f While categorization helped create a market for a “black sound” under urban/contemporary and R&B labels, it also created challenges for African American artists to reach wide audiences.65 Executives at record labels, eyeing profits and aware of splits in genre preferences among listeners, began promoting artists whose sound and image appealed to multiple demographics. Michael Jackson’s 1982 album Thriller was a throbbing, of-the-moment album with just such crossover promise, though it initially caused controversy among AOR listeners loath to listen to nonrock recordings by a black artist.g One single on the album, “Billie Jean,” resonated with audiences, soaring to the top of the Billboard charts by March 1983. CBS Records banked on “Billie Jean,” funding a video with an elaborate narrative and an estimated price tag of $60,000–$75,000.66 Despite the evident success of the single, CBS Records’ promoters were initially unsuccessful in pitching the video to MTV, whose programmers repeated that the song did not fit their format. The channel did not initially show the videos of urban contemporary and R&B artists, a policy that discouraged record companies from producing those promotional vehicles. h “I figure if they played my video I could probably sell hundreds of thousands more records than I do now,” said soul and funk “Super Freak” artist Rick James in 1983, when he charged MTV with racist practices. 67 In the same year, MTV’s vice president of programming said of its format, “It’s got nothing to do with color; it’s the sound of the music.” 68i But as MTV’s role in influencing tastes and record sales became more apparent, industry figures began to question their exclusion of many black artists. David Bowie asked a veejay in 1983, “Is it not possible it should be a conviction of the station and of the radio stations to be fair . . . to make the media more integrated?”69 A changing popular music culture embraced Thriller before MTV did. Three million units of the album sold before MTV programmers picked up “Billie Jean” in March 1983, allegedly after CBS f Culture Club, with lead vocalist Boy George, combined British new wave and American soul sounds, while Hall and Oates

crossed music genres with their “rock and soul” style. g “After a few weeks of complaints, it all changed to request,” said the program director of WPLJ, the New York radio station

that first aired “Beat It, ” a single on the album infused with the guitar performance of heavy metal star Eddie Van Halen. (Wayne Robins, “A Thriller: Pop Battles Race Barrier,” Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1983, p. R56.) h While unknown white groups were making music videos for $25,000 in 1983, black artists were making them for much less,

and in most cases only after their records had become hits. (Richard Gold, “Labels Limit Videos on Black Artists: MTV Attitude Plays Big Role,” Variety, December 15, 1982, pp. 73, 78.) i Said Pittman at the time, “Rick James is great. So is Parliament-Funkadelic, but we turned down Rick James because the

consumer didn’t define him as rock. . . . But we do play black artists—Joan Armatrading, Gary U.S. Bonds, Jimi Hendrix— because they fit within rock and roll. So it has to do not with race, but with sound.” (R. Serge Denisoff, Inside MTV (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991), p. 99.)




Records officials threatened to decrease MTV’s provision of free videos. 70 But one MTV cofounder contended that the move was related to industry forces. “By the time we put that video into rotation, there was really no way for us to ignore ‘Billie Jean.’ It had moved beyond being a ‘black music’ hit; it was an across-the-board smash, pop, black, dance charts, you name it. It was a rock song, a pop song. . . . [I]t fit our format.”71 Once Jackson was playing on the channel, 800,000 copies of Thriller were selling each month.72 As Prince, Eddy Grant, Garland Jefferys, and other black artists were added to MTV’s rotation after Jackson’s debut, forces were breaking down popular music genre lines. Radio stations were taking chances, and programmers were pointing to MTV as one factor in contributing to a new musical infusion on AOR stations.73 One television producer credited the “MTV phenomenon” with reinforcing broader cultural trends, expanding national interest in contemporary music and making pop, soul, and R&B “grooves” interchangeable.74 MTV had introduced audiences to new sounds, eliminating the barriers between new wave, punk, and mainstream rock music. Synthesizers and bass guitars, vocals and visuals alike helped the cable channel retain a certain mood, cultural relevance, and arbiter status: a reciprocal, rather than a purely reflective, dialogue pulsed between the television channel and its viewers.

“MTV: We’re Making It Up As We Go Along” MTV will continue to feed off culture and to feed into it. But if I could predict exactly where it’s going, I wouldn’t be working here anymore; you have to be open-minded and make it up as you go along. — Judy McGrath75 When 20-something Judith McGrath signed on at MTV as a copywriter in 1981, the selfproclaimed “music junkie” positioned herself to track and direct the future of the channel.76 As MTV grew and expanded, so, too, did McGrath’s roles there. Like MTV itself, McGrath in her 30-year stint at the company demonstrated taste-making capabilities and a spirit of reinvention, her decisions reflective of her own “inner teen” sensibilities and in synergy with a changing culture.77 In the late 1980s, MTV executives oversaw a phase of rapid expansion and segmentation of programming at the channel. The sale of MTV to media conglomerate Viacom International Inc. in 1985 pushed the channel from its status as a perceived fad to that of a cultural institution and fullblown, widely offered network composed of Nickelodeon, MTV, and “Video Hits One,” or VH-1, a 1985 addition aimed at an older 25-to-54-year-old demographic. To retain influence and maintain credibility as a distributor of cultural fare, MTV not only had to expand its format beyond an initial focus on album-oriented rock and roll, but had to entertain audiences with more than a constant stream of videos. Executives developed more sustained shows for the original channel. Diversifying content from the “hypnotic” cycle of back-to-back music videos promised to increase ratings and attract advertisers, and made the channel’s format more resemble that of traditional television. Miami Vice generated audience appeal by using “MTV imagery”—i.e., visual tropes of film noir, rock music interludes, and celebrity cameos. 78 Club MTV, a dance show modeled after American Bandstand, debuted in 1985; 120 Minutes showcased alternative recording artists in 1986, and Yo! MTV Raps began giving hip-hop music dedicated airtime in 1988. Remote Control, the network’s first dedicated non-music-oriented show, had a pop-culture game-show format that aired for three seasons beginning in 1987. Beginning in 1989, artists performed acoustic versions of their songs on MTV: Unplugged.



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Although ratings began to climb in 1986, MTV Networks was not considered a serious Viacom asset when Sumner Redstone purchased 83% of the company’s shares in 1987. 79 But by 1991, four years after McGrath took over as director of on-air promotions, the network, which generated 22% of Viacom’s revenue, was growing more than 20% a year,80 with 65% of its $411 million revenues coming from advertisers and the rest from subscriber fees.81

The “Forever Young” Network Our primary relationship is with the audience . . . . — Judy McGrath82 Appointed creative director in 1991, McGrath was constantly balancing opposing forces. On the one hand, her primary allegiance to the “demo” suggested that the nature of programming content was often out of MTV’s hands. As she explained, “We have a responsibility to our viewers to show [what is happening now musically,] we’re not really in control of [the direction the music is going], and if we try to control it MTV is going to lose its edge, which is the thing that makes us great. Plus, it’s a lot more meaningful to show this stuff—it’s real.”83 At the same time, when asked in 1994 what MTV offered to the individual, McGrath replied, “The chance to be forever young, I guess.”84 Wanting the channel to remain forever young as well, McGrath pushed MTV executives to tweak MTV’s format to ensure that the channel remained engaged with, and relevant to, youth culture in the U.S. and beyond. “It’s . . . about being leading edge,” Chairman Tom Freston said. “We’re always trying to reinvent ourselves.” 85 “MTV is associated with the forces of freedom and democracy around the world,” Redstone claimed in the early 1990s. “MTV is on the cutting edge. It’s irreverent. It’s antiestablishment.”86 The MTV brand of irreverence had from its early days resonated with and reflected a growing global youth culture. MTV Europe had debuted in 1987 to Dire Straits’ chant of “I want my MTV” in its “Money for Nothing” video. The network had launched in East Berlin just before the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. By 1992, the channel was in 57 million homes in the U.S., 40 million in Europe, and 24 million in Latin America.87 Some innovative concepts were born of financial constraints. Debuted in 1992, the long-running series The Real World was considered to have spawned the reality television genre. McGrath was the top executive backing the program. Said Freston, “We didn’t have enough money to pay writers or hire stars, so we came up with the idea of putting a bunch of young people in a loft and filming them.”88 In each of its seasons, The Real World continued to sharpen and update MTV’s idiosyncratic identity and showcase its ability to capture and promote aspects of contemporary youth culture. One MTV executive said, “The kids who were watching the show saw themselves on TV without stilted dialogue. [The show is] always a reflection of what’s going on in the culture.” 89 The Real World marked the beginning of a stream of MTV programming that was almost equally reviled and acclaimed by critics and observers. The controversial and wildly popular show Beavis and Butt-Head, which ran from 1993 to 1997, prompted a national dialogue on violent and inappropriate television content, drawing complaints from parents’ organizations, cable operators, advertisers, entertainment executives, and politicians. The show was blamed for inspiring child arson and promoting offensive behavior. Its creator claimed that its “lowest common denominator humor, what cavemen probably laughed at,” was a direct reaction against pervasive political correctness. 90 Redstone concurred, asking why people did not see the show as it was intended to be, “a satire, a parody, indeed an attack on racism and sexism and intolerance and stupidity?” 91




MTV’s multiple identities as cultural mirror, tastemaker, and advertising agency were combined in the social and political campaigns that had originated in its early days. MTV was the first television network to broadcast announcements encouraging safe sex to fight the spread of AIDs in 1985.92 MTV News debuted with “The Week in Rock” in 1987 with a focus on music, but later delved into broader national issues. Its 1992 “Choose or Lose” voting campaign was its first to inform young viewers on politicians’ views and encourage voter participation. After the Los Angeles race riots of 1993, it launched a “Free Your Mind” campaign to target racial discrimination. In 1994, McGrath, now president of MTV, stated that what she did best was to show people how music could be used for “pro-social stuff.”93 By the mid-nineties, the MTV brand extended beyond television to include CDs, DVDs, books, merchandizing and movies, in partnership with Viacom’s Paramount Pictures. 94 MTV’s irreverent image was now shaded with corporate overtones.

Music Lessens Music consumption practices changed as the twentieth century came to a close. Though record sales grew from $3.8 billion in 1983 to $12.5 billion in 1996, the music industry’s growth rate slowed to 2% as the 1990s waned.95 Revenue topped at $14.6 billion in 1999 before dropping to $12.6 billion by 2002.96 The decline was attributed to the disappearing market for record reissues, a slow economy, and illegal downloading of digital music files.97j As the Internet enabled new methods of downloading and streaming music, the recording industry, media companies, websites, and governments struggled to develop standards for controlling the distribution of content online. CD sales had fueled million-dollar music video production in the 1990s, and at the time MTV Networks expanded its channel offerings to accommodate the surge in product, offering digital cable subscribers specialized channels exclusively airing music videos, including “MTV Rocks,” “MTV Ritmo,” and “VH1 Soul.”98 But record labels soon slashed music video budgets, and helicopters and spaceships disappeared from video clips, which now served mostly as promotional vehicles for existing stars.99 As web-based music consumption increased, a variety of models emerged to deliver audio and video products to viewers. Record labels and artists sought to generate revenue through their own and others’ services that delivered music through pay-downloads, subscriptions, and adaccompanied methods. Labels partnered with sites such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Amazon to deliver content, even as music producers and consumers debated copyright and usage issues. MTV attempted to reproduce its music video dominance online through streaming services. The network began offering content online in 1997, and established a network of music websites with the formation in 1999 of MTV Networks Music, Viacom’s collection of music-centered brands targeting audiences aged 18 to 34 years old.100 But as technology improved and Internet bandwidth capacity increased, rival online distributors made gains, and the professional music video itself had new competition from amateur productions made on small or no budgets, uploaded to streaming sites such as YouTube. MTV’s own partnerships with RealNetworks, Inc., and Microsoft faltered.

j According to the Recording Industry Association of America, 2.6 billion copyrighted files, the majority of them music files,

were downloaded every month in 2002. (Recording Industry Association of America, “Some Facts About Music Piracy,” Recording Industry Association of America website, http://www.riaa.com/newsitem.php?id=6828D54B-0FE6-99BE-E8C2E8C854C48DE9, accessed August 2011.)



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As the Internet began to draw audiences away from television screens, MTV ratings declined, with viewership falling from 636,000 in 2005 to 481,000 in 2009. 101 MTV, along with its sibling Viacom channels VH1, BET, and Country Music Television (CMT), turned further away from the music video.k Fully scripted shows and more inexpensive reality and “celebreality” programs, including Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County (2004), maintained the network’s reputation as a provider of escapist entertainment. MTV executives canceled the long-running music program TRL: Total Request Live in 2008, and began airing programs on its once music-only MTV2.l Shows debuted to cater to a cohort of young audiences who watched television with their parents and engaged in social activism.m Efforts to reach new demographics resulted in the 2004 launch of mtvU, a channel for university students, and the 2006 launch of MTV Tr3, for Hispanic audiences. 102 “If you limit yourself to one type of show,” said Viacom’s chief executive in 2010, “you're playing with one hand behind your back.”103 No longer associated solely with music culture, MTV dropped the “Music Television” from its logo in 2010.104 Meanwhile, MTV further expanded overseas. Present in Europe and Latin America, MTV launched MTV-India in 1998. Income from international advertising rose 50% in 2002. 105 By 2003, when MTV entered parts of China, MTV Networks was valued at $6.28 billion and ranked 46th on Interbrand’s annual list of the world’s 100 most valuable brands.106 By 2004, when McGrath was appointed chairwoman and chief executive officer, the network was in 400 million households in 166 countries. 107 The foreign networks followed MTV’s formula, but tweaked music and programming content to cater to local audiences. In India, for instance, MTV made a highly publicized and commented-upon switch from airing Western music videos to predominantly featuring songs from Indian films. But McGrath knew that many of the channels around the world were “constitutionally designed to court controversy.”108 Domestically, controversy served as a dependent variable in MTV’s cultural calculations. “I think we’re a great weave-and-dodge company,” said McGrath in 2004.109 Taking up an old refrain, the American Family Association called MTV “anti-family” that year.110 In 2005, the Parents’ Television Council released a report entitled, “MTV Smut Peddlers: Targeting Kids with Sex, Drugs and Alcohol.”111 When MTV remade British television series Skins in 2011, the explicit recreational drug use and sexual behavior of teenagers on the show prompted another public discussion on television content. The Parents Television Council pushed federal agencies to investigate MTV’s possible violation of child pornography laws, and advertisers withdrew their spots.112 MTV’s promotion of controversial subjects reflected an open-mindedness espoused by McGrath herself, whose tolerance heralded social insight. Said one record company executive of McGrath in 2004, “She understands the culture and music and fashion and style and how they blend together, and that’s reflected in the channel that she runs.”113

k MTV Hits, which debuted in 1999, and MTV Jams, which launched in 2000, had been created to exclusively show music

videos. (“Electric Avenues: The Original MTV Has Spawned A Plethora of Platforms,” Billboard, September 2, 2006, p. 48.) l In 2005, TRL reached on average 662,000 households each day, while in one week that May, AOL Music had 12.2 million hits,

and Yahoo Music, 11.3 million. (Jon Caramanica, “I Screen, You Screen: The New Age of the Music Video,” nytimes.com, July 31, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/arts/music/31cara.html?pagewanted=1&fta=y, accessed August 2011.) m In 2007, Viacom launched thinkMTV, a social networking site, to engage viewers in political issues such as same-sex

marriage and war, after conducting a survey in which 80% of young people said that community and social action were important to them, but only a fraction of that percentage were involved in such activities. (Caroline McCarthy, “Viacom’s Flux has its first major tenant: ThinkMTV,” post on Cnet.com news blog, “The Social,” September 19, 2007, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9781846-36.html, accessed September 2011.)




Mirror or Beacon? By the time MTV’s 30th anniversary rolled around, the world had changed. The channel was no longer confined to the small screen, but aimed to give its target audiences “an experience beyond linear television.”114 MTV became more entwined with mobile and digital platforms, as program divisions were launched to develop short video material for mobile platforms and online content increased.n In July 2008, MTV.com received 8.5 million visits on the strength of its online content and aggressive, multiplatform advertising strategies, but it was well behind Yahoo’s music video service, with 23 million viewers, and MySpace, with 21 million viewers. 115 Like all TV channels, MTV was affected by the ease with which viewers could access video content online. The rise of YouTube and other similar sites effected a change in viewing habits and preferences. A 2010 study by MTV Networks Digital found that 66% of respondents would watch advertising online in exchange for free video, as compared with 55% in 2009. 116 By 2011, three of four major music companies were distributing music and reaping revenue through views of videos on Vevo, an online player that debuted in 2009.117 Vevo also drove music video content on YouTube, AOL, BET, CBS Interactive Music Group, and Univision. In 2010, Vevo reported it had around 57.8 million unique visitors in the U.S., who usually viewed videos for more than 76 minutes each month.118 Record labels, which still invested substantial sums in new artists (see Exhibit 1 for a breakdown of record companies’ investments), could now choose between partnering with Vevo or MTV in order to license online videos, or could even launch artist-branded websites or artist channels on sites such as YouTube. Music companies also depended more on social networking sites to create an integrated marketing campaign for their artists. MySpace alone had more than 2 million pages featuring music acts. In 2010, 29% of the recording industry’s revenues came from digital sales. Pandora (U.S.), Spotify (Sweden), MFlow (U.K.), and Deezer (France) were a few of the more than 400 licensed digital music services that provided millions of listeners around-the-clock legal access to the latest songs (see Exhibit 2 for the shape of trends in the music industry). By 2010, over 60 million unique individuals were visiting an MTV music website each month.119 MTV hired a “TJ,” or “Twitter Jockey,” to represent the network online, and launched a “Posted” initiative to track certain artists’ social media activity on its websites. 120 MTV and VH1 launched programs on the iPad tablet platforms. 121 A web-based game for MTV’s popular Jersey Shore reality series attracted 1.7 unique monthly players. 122 Yet, all these initiatives failed to generate the impact and revenues to which MTV had grown accustomed in its heady early years. Adding to these problems, McGrath, whom one representative deemed the channel’s “heart and soul,” left in 2011, giving observers further cause to question the future of MTV. 123 Though its imminent demise had been predicted at nearly every phase of its existence, MTV had so far proved to be a resilient provider of cultural code words and unbounded youthful energy. What did “MTV” stand for in the new landscape? Would the new “demo” still want its MTV? Could MTV still reflect a global youth experience, or should it instead produce it? Could it be a tastemaker and agent of change in the new world, or was it better off as a mirror?

n “It’s like programming for the attention deficit disorder generation,” said MTV Networks film and music executive Van

Toffler. “Give it to them quick, because they’re going to watch it on the run.” (Brett Pulley, “Teensy TV,” Forbes.com, September 4, 2006, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0904/062.html, accessed August 2011.)



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Exhibit 1 Breakdown of Record Companies’ Investment in Developing and Marketing New Artists (2010 average figures)

Advance

20%

Advances allow artists to focus on writing, rehearsing, recording, and performing. While advances in major markets are typically $200,000, some stars can draw more than $1 million.

Recording

20%

The reputation of the producer and the number of musicians and technicians are among the factors affecting the cost of recording a new album.

Videos

20%

The process of filming music videos for new artists typically costs $200,000, although producing an elaborate promotional video might cost $1 million.

Tour support

10%

Record labels must heavily support new artists on tour, often spending $100,000 per market for new artists.

Promotion/marketing

30%

Record companies heavily promote and market new acts in order to build a wide audience and create a profitable brand identity for their artists.

Source: Casewriter adaptation of data from IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), “New report shows how much record companies are ‘investing in music,’” IFPI website, March 9, 2010, http://ifpi.org/content/section_ news/investing_in_music.html, accessed August 2011; and “Investing in Music: How Music Companies Discover, Develop, and Promote Talent,” Report of Worldwide Independent Music and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/investing_in_music.pdf, accessed October 2011. Note:

Estimates indicated that it cost record labels $1 million to introduce a new pop artist in the U.K. and U.S.



Exhibit 2

Year


Trends in the Music Industry

Music Sales (million shipments)ao

Music Sales (manufacturers’ value, million US$)bp

Digital Sales (million US$)

Number of Musicians and Composers in the United Statescq

1975

437.2

1,795.3

N/A

144,000

1981

635.4

3,969.9

N/A

147,000

1985

652.9

4,387.8

N/A

152,000

1991

801.0

7,834.2

N/A

156,000

1995

1,113

12,320

N/A

161,000

2001

968.5

13,740

N/A

180,000

2005

1,302

12,297

1,200dr

213,000

2009

1,852

7,690

4,200es

168,000

Source: Casewriter analysis of data from the Recording Industry Association of America and the U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States, various years.

a Shipments are “shipments from the record labels to the stores they supply” in the U.S. market, collected from record labels.

RIAA shipment reports include data on the sales of records, tapes, and CDS, as well as digital downloads, mobile sales, and subscription services. Recording Industry Association of America, “So What Exactly is a Shipment,” RIAA Music Notes Blog, July 23, 2009, http://www.riaa.com/blog.php?content_selector=riaa-news-blog&blog_selector=So-What-Exactly-Is-A-Ship ment&news_month_filter=7&news_year_filter=2009, accessed September 2011. b Does not include digital sales. c For 2005, 2009, “Musicians, singers, and related workers.” d IFPI, “IFPI Digital Music Report 2009: New business models for a changing environment,” IFPI website, January 2009,

http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/dmr2009.pdf, accessed August 2011. e IFPI, “IFPI Digital Music Report 2010: Music how, when, where you want it,” IFPI website, January 2010, http://www.ifpi.

org/content/library/DMR2010.pdf, accessed August 2011.



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Endnotes 1

R. Serge Denisoff, Inside MTV (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991), p. 29.

2

Denisoff, Inside MTV, p. 34.

3

David J. Benjack and J. Michael MacKeen, “MTV Networks: MTV,” in New Product Success Stories: Lessons from Leading Innovators, ed. Robert J. Thomas (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995), p. 282; and Will Straw, “Popular Music and Post-Modernism in the 1980s” in Sound and Vision: The Music Video Reader, eds. Simon Frith et al. (New York: Routledge Inc., 1993), p. 5. 4


5


6 Warner Communications Incorporated, 1979 Annual Report (New York: Warner Communications Incorporated, 1980), p. 50, via ProQuest Annual Reports, accessed July 2011. 7

Jack Banks, Monopoly Television: MTV’s Quest to Control the Music (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, Inc., 1996),

p. 30. 8

Warner Communications Incorporated, 1979 Annual Report, p. 50.

9

R. Serge Denisoff, Solid Gold: The Popular Record Industry (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1975), p.

xiii. 10

Geoffrey P. Hull, The Recording Industry (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. viii.

11

Hull, The Recording Industry, p. 2.

12

Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo, Rock ‘n’ roll is here to pay: The History and Politics of the Music Industry, (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977), p. 53. 13

Denisoff, Solid Gold, p. 4.

14

Michael Cable, The Pop Industry Inside Out (London: W.H. Allen, 1977), p. 7.

15

Banks, Monopoly Television, p. 31.

16

Chapple and Garofalo, Rock ‘n’ roll is here to pay, p. 92.

17


18


19


20 Jon Pareles, “Pop Record Business Shows Signs of Recovery,” nytimes.com, November 28, 1983, http://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/28/arts/pop-record-business-shows-signs-of-recovery.html, accessed Aug. 2011; and Peter Tschmuch, Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2006), p. 149. 21


22


23


24

Denisoff, Inside MTV, pp. 11–12.

25

Chapple and Garofalo, Rock ‘n’ roll is here to pay, p. 148; and Denisoff, Solid Gold, p. 355.




26

Chapple and Garofalo, Rock ‘n’ roll is here to pay, p. 152.

27


28

Benjack and MacKeen, “MTV Networks: MTV,” p. 281.

29


30


31

Warner Communications Incorporated 1979 Annual Report, p. 48; and Denisoff, Inside MTV, p. 30.

32


33

John Seabrook, “Rocking in Shangri-La,” New Yorker, October 10, 1994, pp. 72–73.

34


35


36

Robert Sam Anson, “Birth of an MTV Nation,” Vanity Fair, November 2000, http://www.vanityfair.com/ culture/features/2000/11/mtv200011, accessed September 2011. 37


38

Gabriel Weimann, Communicating unreality: modern media and the reconstruction of reality (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 2000), p. 191. 39


40

Weimann, Communicating unreality, p. 191.

41


42

Straw, “Popular Music and Post-Modernism in the 1980s,” p. 3.

43

R. Serge Denisoff, Tarnished Gold (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1986), p. 386.

44


45


46 Jody Berland, “Sound, Image and Social Space: Music Video and Media Reconstruction” in Frith et al., Sound and Vision: The Music Video Reader, p. 35. 47


48 Mark Tungate, Media Monoliths: How Great Media Brands Thrive and Survive (Sterling, VA: Kogan Page Limited, 2004), p. 41. 49


50


51


52


53

Benjack and MacKeen, “MTV Networks: MTV,” p. 288.

54

Saul Austerlitz, Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2007), p. 31.



55

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56 Frank Meyer, “Video Producer Sees Overhead Doubling As Unions Get Into Act,” Variety Weekly, May 11, 1983, p. 83. 57

Austerlitz, Money for Nothing, p. 41; Andrew Goodwin, Dancing In The Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), p. 161. 58


59

Banks, Monopoly Television, p. 19; and Goodwin, Dancing In The Distraction Factory, p. 136.

60


61


62

S. Levy, “Ad Nauseam: How MTV Sells Out Rock and Roll,” Rolling Stone, December 8, 1983, pp. 30–37,

74–79. 63


64

Wayne Robins, “A Thriller: Pop Battles Race Barrier,” Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1983, p. R56.

65

Robins, “A Thriller: Pop Battles Race Barrier.”

66


67


68

Robins, “A Thriller: Pop Battles Race Barrier.”

69


70


71


72


73

Richard Gold, “Audience Tastes Force New Musical Infusion,” Variety, June 15, 1983, p. 1.

74

Cynthia Kirk, “’Soul Train’ To Put More Pop On Its Syndie Rails,” Variety, February 6, 1984, p. 12.

75

Michael Freitag, “Stylemaker; Judy McGrath: Television Executive,” nytimes.com, April 9, 1989, http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/09/style/stylemakers-judy-mcgrath-television-executive.html, accessed September 2011. 76 Bill Carter, “A Music Fan in Touch With Her ‘Inner Teen’ Takes Control of a Media Powerhouse,” nytimes.com, July 26, 2004. 77

Carter, “A Music Fan in Touch With Her ‘Inner Teen.’”

78


79

Matthew Schifrin, “I Can’t Even Remember the Old Star’s Name,” Forbes, March 16, 1992, via ProQuest, accessed August 2011. 80 Goodwin, Dancing In The Distraction Factory, p. 137; Joseph L. Badaracco and Jerry Useem, “This Case Sucks,” HBS No. 395-053 (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 1997), p. 4; and Schifrin, “I Can’t Even Remember the Old Star’s Name.” 81

Schifrin, “I Can’t Even Remember the Old Star’s Name.” 17 This document is authorized for use only by iin. mayasari in 2015.



82

Lawrie Mifflin, “Putting the ‘M’ Back in MTV,” nytimes.com, August 31, 1998, http://www.nytimes.com/ 1998/08/31/business/putting-the-m-back-in-mtv.html, accessed October 2011. 83 Seabrook,

“Rocking in Shangri-La,” p. 64.

84

Seabrook, “Rocking in Shangri-La,” p. 69.

85

Tungate, Media Monoliths, p. 47.

86Badaracco

and Useem, “This Case Sucks,” p. 5.

87

Shifrin, “I Can’t Even Remember the Old Star’s Name.”

88


89

Peter Bart, Boffo: How I Learned to Love the Blockbuster and Fear the Bomb (New York: Miramax Books, 2006), p. 9. 90

Badaracco and Useem, “This Case Sucks,” p. 3.

91

Badaracco and Useem, “This Case Sucks,” p. 6.

92

Michael Paoletta, “MTV’s ‘Juice,’” Billboard, September 2, 2006, p. 46.

93

Seabrook, “Rocking in Shangri-La,” p. 68.

94


95

Peter Newcomb, “The music never stopped,” Forbes, March 24, 1997, p. 90, via ProQuest, accessed August

2011. 96

Hull, The Recording Industry, p. 5.

97 John Jurgensen, “Beyond ‘Thriller’: Reinventing the Music Video,” Wall Street Journal Online, May 6, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703834804576301022363607508.html, accessed July 2011. 98

Bill Carter, “Using New Digital Technology, MTV Adds Specialty Channels,” nytimes.com, November 25, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/25/arts/using-new-digital-technology-mtv-adds-specializedchannels. html, accessed August 2011. 99

Kelefa Sanneh, “Outshining MTV: How Video Killed the Video Star,” nytimes.com, August 31, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/arts/music/31sann.html, accessed August 2011. 100 “MTV to Transmit Internet Video,” nytimes.com, April 8, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/ 04/08/business/mtv-to-transmit-internet-videos.html, accessed August 2011. 101

Brian Stelter, “MTV Is Looking Beyond ‘Jersey Shore’ to Build a Wider Audience,” nytimes.com, October 24, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/business/media/25mtv.html, accessed August 2011. 102

“Electric Avenues: The Original MTV Has Spawned A Plethora of Platforms,” Billboard, September 2, 2006, p. 48. 103 Sam Schechner, “Reality Check: MTV Bets on Scripts,” Wall Street Journal Online, June 13, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704256604575294811340482530.html , accessed August 2011. 104

Denise Martin, “MTV drops ‘Music Television’ from the network logo,” February 8, 2010, post on Los Angeles Times blog, “Show Tracker,” http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/02/mtv-drops-musictelevision-from-its-logo.html, accessed August 2011. 105 Tungate,

Media Monoliths, p. 51.



106 Tungate,


107 Tungate,


108


109


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110 Bill Fancher, “Rock For Life Vows to Expose MTV’s Anti-Family Agenda,” June 16, 2004, American Family Association Online, http://web.archive.org/web/20070211092916/http://headlines. agapepress.org/archive/6/ afa/162004f.asp, accessed August 2011. 111 Casey Williams, “MTV Smut Peddlers: Targeting kids with sex, drugs and alcohol,” Parents Television Council Online, http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/reports/mtv2005/MTV_Report.pdf, accessed August 2011. 112

Stuart Elliott and Brian Stelter, “’Skins’ Loses Advertisers—and Viewers,” January 26, 2011, post on New York Times blog “Media Decoder,” http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/skins-losesadvertisers-and-viewers/?ref=mtvnetworks, accessed August 2011. 113


114

David Carr, “Do They Still Want Their MTV?” nytimes.com, February 19, 2007, http://www.nytimes. com/2007/02/19/business/media/19carr.html, accessed August 2011. 115

Jeff Leeds, “MTV Aims to Return to Its Days of Glory,” nytimes.com, September 6, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/arts/television/06mtv.html, accessed August 2011. 116 MTVN Digital, “Online Video Consumption & Its Impact on TV Viewership: Insights from the MTVN Digital “My Voice” Panel,” p. 6, http://mtvndigital.com/news/pdfs/MTVND-Video.pdf, accessed August 2011. 117

Jurgensen, “Beyond ‘Thriller’: Reinventing the Music Video,” May 6, 2011.

118 IFPI, “IFPI Digital Music Report 2011: Music at the Touch of a Button,” IFPI website, January 2011 http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/DMR2011.pdf, accessed August 2011. 119

Stelter, “MTV Is Looking Beyond ‘Jersey Shore’ to Build a Wider Audience.”

120 Mike Shields, “MTV Sites Into Artist-Focused Channels,” Adweek Online, June 3, 2010, http://www. adweek.com/news/technology/mtv-sites-intro-artist-focused-channels-102502, accessed August 2011. 121

Mike Shields, “MTV, VH1 Go Dot-tablet.,” Adweek Online, March 14, 2011, http://www.adweek.com/ news/technology/mtv-vh1-go-dot-tablet-125982, accessed August 2011. 122 Mike Shields, “Why Jersey Shore’s Facebook Game Is a Huge Hit,” Adweek Online, March 3, 2011, http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/why-jersey-shores-facebook-game-huge-hit-125884, accessed August 2011. 123 Bill Carter, “Head of MTV Networks Resigns Abruptly,” nytimes.com, May 5, 2011, http://www. nytimes.com/2011/05/06/business/media/06mtv.html, accessed September 2011.


Case MTV (ASLI).pdf

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