Put the M back in MTV
2011_02_03_22:41
An open letter to MTV: “Please put the M back”.
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If you’re like me, then you wince every time you turn on MTV, hoping and praying against your own sense of reason that you will actually see a music video, only to be disappointed time after time.
You are not insulted because what you find is cheap and shallow entertainment. Nor are you insulted because MTV no longer has a role to play in the music industry. Although these issues are certainly worthy of conversation, what you are insulted by is the fact that MTV has contributed to the economic downfall of the film industry. That’s right, I’ll repeat that. MTV has led to the economic downfall of the film industry. I know, you thought it was the tax credits in Canada, or the outsourcing of VFX to overseas companies. Or was it reality television? While all these things are indeed valid economic factors that Peter Bart and Peter Gruber can discuss in great detail, none of them have had the same far-reaching ripple effect as MTV’s self-destructive act of programming wall-to-wall reality shows at the expense of music videos. Well, at least not single-handedly. But I’ll get to that later. First, a history lesson.
Do you remember music videos? No, not those silly one-in-a-million, no-budget, phenomena that your old college roommate sends you via instant-message, only to have you watch about sixty seconds until passing it along to another friend before returning to your TPS reports. I’m talking about the high-concept, and sometimes high production value, pieces that were presented by your favorite band/artist, or at the very least some artist that managed to make a great video. You remember those, don’t you? Of course you do. You can probably name a half dozen off the top of your head, just like you quote lines from Seinfeld. You watched them because you liked the music and you liked the way the visual and sonic qualities were married together. At first you tuned in because you liked the music. But after awhile, as you aged and as the format matured, you began to appreciate the cinematic craftsmanship that was put into them. They were clever, dramatic, edgy, violent, funny, experimental, artsy, and thought provoking. They pushed the bounds of filmic “laws” and gave you a new appreciation of animation, cinematography, art direction, production design, and more than anything else, editing. The impact of editing in MTV can’t be understated. Indeed, the term/phrase “MTV style cutting” was almost like word “pornography”: you couldn’t define it, but you certainly recognized it when you saw it. First it was in fashion, then it was cliché, and then it was used in the film “JFK”.
Those were music videos. What happened to those things? I’ll tell you what happened, and it wasn’t the Internet, and it wasn’t Napster. It wasn’t iTunes or the iPod. It wasn’t Brittany Spears or hip-hop. It wasn’t 9/11. It wasn’t MySpace, Twitter, or Facebook. No, it wasn’t China. It wasn’t any of those external factors that killed off the music video format. Sadly, it was something born from within the halls of MTV itself. It happened in 1992 and it was called “The Real World”.
I know, you’re saying to yourself “wait, you said it wasn’t reality television”. It’s true, it wasn’t reality television that inherently killed off the music video. It could’ve been any other show. In fact, shortly after “The Real World” premiered, so did “Beavis & Butthead” but the the difference is I don’t see wall-to-wall animated pubescent programming when I turn to MTV now. Instead, I see wall-to-wall live action pubescent pseudo-reality programming. And that trend began with “The Real World”.
To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with “The Real World”. I watched the show during its premiere season, and I think I even followed it for several years after. So, no, this isn’t an attack on reality programming in general. Rather, this is a flat out question of how, and why, MTV has cannibalized its founding format in lieu of reality programming, to the detriment of the greater film industry?
When I studied broadcasting in the, ahem, mid-90’s, I had a class called “The Business of Broadcasting”, and MTV was highlighted as one of the great successes in television history. People forget that music videos are/were commercials, and thus MTV’s entire format was based on getting advertisers (record labels) to show their ads (bands/artists) for free. On top of that, MTV was then able to charge traditional advertisers for ad time. It was brilliant. They didn’t have to purchase any content There was no minimum number of “episodes” that had to run to ensure a show would live on in syndication - there was no syndication! Everything was fresh. It was non-stop commercials, with breaks for other commercials, and America’s youth ate it up with veracity. Why, in all economic sense, would you give this up? Don’t tell me that more people tune in to watch “Jersey Shore” now than they did to watch “Yo! MTV Raps!” or “Headbangers Ball”. And even if more people do tune into those shows, you can’t tell me that you make more money on advertising for the prime sub-teen audience after the expense of producing the show is taken out. I don’t buy it. So, I ask: Why, MTV, why?!
Beyond the why, however, the main point of my tirade is to point out how the format change at MTV has devastated the broader film industry. How so? By failing to provide a central platform to view and judge creative content. When MTV was playing music videos on a regular basis, the network was in effect a “creative benchmark” by which things could be measured. If your stuff wasn’t good enough to go on MTV, then it wasn’t good enough. Period.
This barrier to entry created upward creative competition to make better music video content, and along the way it created jobs, not just for the directors but also for all of the supporting positions that go with any film production. In addition, it had a positive creative impact on commercials and feature films with the aesthetics, if not the directors themselves, moving into commercials and feature films. Consider the better film directors of today – Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Michel Gondry, Mark Romanek, Hype Williams, Tarsem, F. Gary Gray, and others – and then ask yourself where the boundary pushing directors of tomorrow are going to come from, Youtube and the internet? Mmm, maybe, but I can guarantee that as soon as any filmmaker achieves any level of creative or financial success on the internet, they will quickly be moving to greener pastures of the paid and budgeted broadcast, cinematic, or online world, which further underscores the point. The so-called democratization of storytelling hasn’t led to better content, it has just led to more of it. Thus, in the absence of a centralized viewing arena on television or online, there is currently no viable platform for music videos, and the creative breeding ground for the film industry has suffered as a result. Congruent to that, the economic base has also fallen through the basement. From a label perspective, why pay money for a video if nobody is gonna air it. Why spend $100,000 (a modest sum by early 90’s video standards) for a video when college kids can spend $1000 and get the same potential audience for their no-name band? And that argument totally makes sense, from a lable/artist perspective. But from an economic perspective, it is shooting the industry in the foot. There is no longer any reason to create good content, let alone spend money on it. The only solution is to re-establish the creative benchmark that others strive to achieve.
So I beg of you, MTV, please put music videos back into rotation. Please take all of your past pop-cultural significance and combine it with all of your current parent company’s muscle to revamp your broadcast and online presence to be a central depository for music videos. Much like the Oscar’s serve to “legitimize” Hollywood films, we need a network that devotes itself to the quality and craftsmanship of music videos. Fans want it, musicians want it, and for the love of Michael Jackson, American filmmakers need it!!!
You are not insulted because what you find is cheap and shallow entertainment. Nor are you insulted because MTV no longer has a role to play in the music industry. Although these issues are certainly worthy of conversation, what you are insulted by is the fact that MTV has contributed to the economic downfall of the film industry. That’s right, I’ll repeat that. MTV has led to the economic downfall of the film industry. I know, you thought it was the tax credits in Canada, or the outsourcing of VFX to overseas companies. Or was it reality television? While all these things are indeed valid economic factors that Peter Bart and Peter Gruber can discuss in great detail, none of them have had the same far-reaching ripple effect as MTV’s self-destructive act of programming wall-to-wall reality shows at the expense of music videos. Well, at least not single-handedly. But I’ll get to that later. First, a history lesson.
Do you remember music videos? No, not those silly one-in-a-million, no-budget, phenomena that your old college roommate sends you via instant-message, only to have you watch about sixty seconds until passing it along to another friend before returning to your TPS reports. I’m talking about the high-concept, and sometimes high production value, pieces that were presented by your favorite band/artist, or at the very least some artist that managed to make a great video. You remember those, don’t you? Of course you do. You can probably name a half dozen off the top of your head, just like you quote lines from Seinfeld. You watched them because you liked the music and you liked the way the visual and sonic qualities were married together. At first you tuned in because you liked the music. But after awhile, as you aged and as the format matured, you began to appreciate the cinematic craftsmanship that was put into them. They were clever, dramatic, edgy, violent, funny, experimental, artsy, and thought provoking. They pushed the bounds of filmic “laws” and gave you a new appreciation of animation, cinematography, art direction, production design, and more than anything else, editing. The impact of editing in MTV can’t be understated. Indeed, the term/phrase “MTV style cutting” was almost like word “pornography”: you couldn’t define it, but you certainly recognized it when you saw it. First it was in fashion, then it was cliché, and then it was used in the film “JFK”.
Those were music videos. What happened to those things? I’ll tell you what happened, and it wasn’t the Internet, and it wasn’t Napster. It wasn’t iTunes or the iPod. It wasn’t Brittany Spears or hip-hop. It wasn’t 9/11. It wasn’t MySpace, Twitter, or Facebook. No, it wasn’t China. It wasn’t any of those external factors that killed off the music video format. Sadly, it was something born from within the halls of MTV itself. It happened in 1992 and it was called “The Real World”.
I know, you’re saying to yourself “wait, you said it wasn’t reality television”. It’s true, it wasn’t reality television that inherently killed off the music video. It could’ve been any other show. In fact, shortly after “The Real World” premiered, so did “Beavis & Butthead” but the the difference is I don’t see wall-to-wall animated pubescent programming when I turn to MTV now. Instead, I see wall-to-wall live action pubescent pseudo-reality programming. And that trend began with “The Real World”.
To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with “The Real World”. I watched the show during its premiere season, and I think I even followed it for several years after. So, no, this isn’t an attack on reality programming in general. Rather, this is a flat out question of how, and why, MTV has cannibalized its founding format in lieu of reality programming, to the detriment of the greater film industry?
When I studied broadcasting in the, ahem, mid-90’s, I had a class called “The Business of Broadcasting”, and MTV was highlighted as one of the great successes in television history. People forget that music videos are/were commercials, and thus MTV’s entire format was based on getting advertisers (record labels) to show their ads (bands/artists) for free. On top of that, MTV was then able to charge traditional advertisers for ad time. It was brilliant. They didn’t have to purchase any content There was no minimum number of “episodes” that had to run to ensure a show would live on in syndication - there was no syndication! Everything was fresh. It was non-stop commercials, with breaks for other commercials, and America’s youth ate it up with veracity. Why, in all economic sense, would you give this up? Don’t tell me that more people tune in to watch “Jersey Shore” now than they did to watch “Yo! MTV Raps!” or “Headbangers Ball”. And even if more people do tune into those shows, you can’t tell me that you make more money on advertising for the prime sub-teen audience after the expense of producing the show is taken out. I don’t buy it. So, I ask: Why, MTV, why?!
Beyond the why, however, the main point of my tirade is to point out how the format change at MTV has devastated the broader film industry. How so? By failing to provide a central platform to view and judge creative content. When MTV was playing music videos on a regular basis, the network was in effect a “creative benchmark” by which things could be measured. If your stuff wasn’t good enough to go on MTV, then it wasn’t good enough. Period.
This barrier to entry created upward creative competition to make better music video content, and along the way it created jobs, not just for the directors but also for all of the supporting positions that go with any film production. In addition, it had a positive creative impact on commercials and feature films with the aesthetics, if not the directors themselves, moving into commercials and feature films. Consider the better film directors of today – Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Michel Gondry, Mark Romanek, Hype Williams, Tarsem, F. Gary Gray, and others – and then ask yourself where the boundary pushing directors of tomorrow are going to come from, Youtube and the internet? Mmm, maybe, but I can guarantee that as soon as any filmmaker achieves any level of creative or financial success on the internet, they will quickly be moving to greener pastures of the paid and budgeted broadcast, cinematic, or online world, which further underscores the point. The so-called democratization of storytelling hasn’t led to better content, it has just led to more of it. Thus, in the absence of a centralized viewing arena on television or online, there is currently no viable platform for music videos, and the creative breeding ground for the film industry has suffered as a result. Congruent to that, the economic base has also fallen through the basement. From a label perspective, why pay money for a video if nobody is gonna air it. Why spend $100,000 (a modest sum by early 90’s video standards) for a video when college kids can spend $1000 and get the same potential audience for their no-name band? And that argument totally makes sense, from a lable/artist perspective. But from an economic perspective, it is shooting the industry in the foot. There is no longer any reason to create good content, let alone spend money on it. The only solution is to re-establish the creative benchmark that others strive to achieve.
So I beg of you, MTV, please put music videos back into rotation. Please take all of your past pop-cultural significance and combine it with all of your current parent company’s muscle to revamp your broadcast and online presence to be a central depository for music videos. Much like the Oscar’s serve to “legitimize” Hollywood films, we need a network that devotes itself to the quality and craftsmanship of music videos. Fans want it, musicians want it, and for the love of Michael Jackson, American filmmakers need it!!!
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