More than any other music experience conduit, MTV has undergone the most consistent and successful evolution ever since its launch on August 1, 1981. Its maverick philosophy in the digital age sets the standard amongst its peers, and most recently, according to comScore Media Metrix data, MTV Music Group garnered more than 53 million unique visitors in August alone and saw a 165 percent year-to-year growth in its web traffic, making it the #1 online music destination for the month.
By Mike Bacon
Amy Doyle
More than any other music experience conduit, MTV has undergone the most consistent and successful evolution ever since its launch on August 1, 1981. Its maverick philosophy in the digital age sets the standard amongst its peers, and most recently, according to comScore Media Metrix data, MTV Music Group garnered
more than 53 million unique visitors in August alone and saw a 165 percent
year-to-year growth in its web traffic, making it the #1 online music destination for the month.
We recently reached out to MTV’s Head of Music and Talent, Amy Doyle on
the brand’s evolution and its reach across a plethora of platforms. The former radio programmer filled us in on how MTV has stayed ahead of the curve in exposing new music and new artists in a musically multitasking era.
How has MTV bolstered its reputation as the premier launching pad for music videos?
First of all we recognize that our audience’s behavior has shifted. They embrace all kinds of new technology. It’s really become an On Demand culture. It’s also very cluttered out there. It’s an amazing time to be a music fan, but to a certain extent you need to know what you’re looking for so you can really experience the music you want at the deepest level. So the way we’ve evolved is to really make sure we’re reaching the audience wherever they are; having the MTV editorial voice and music knowledge appear across all of our channels as well as MTV.com, and through all of our music programming. If you watch the channel you’ll see during Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, orReal World – there’s a soundtrack that goes along with every one of those shows.
How did that come about?
About four-or-five-years-ago, we started telling the audience the music that they’re hearing; take the mystery out of it. Often times you hear a great song in a show, but you have no idea who the artist is or what the song title is. So we do real time song IDing, which has been fantastic. The feedback from the audience has been great. They seek out the video, more music, live performances, information, and for us it’s important all of that music experience is spread across the MTV brand and platform. For music video premieres, the audience doesn’t necessarily sit and watch an hour block of videos, but they still love music videos and they are still a very important part of what we do. So we changed the way we present them and we really treat music video premieres like we would treat the launch of a new series by doing it in prime time.
Most recently we premiered Kayne West, Eminem, Katy Perry, Linkin Park, the 30H!3 video with Lil Jon from the Jersey Shore soundtrack, and Taylor Swift.
Artists will come to us for that big premiere because they want the credibility of still being associated with MTV because they know every artist everywhere can get their video on the Internet, and it’s not necessarily celebrated the way we do it. We promote it, tease it and roll it out in prime time, and it’s been really, really successful. You reach this huge audience that you know loves music, and you reach more of them at a time than you would if it was in some random rotation. We treat it like an event and encourage the audience to share it and talk about it. We’re able to be the ones who incite that buzz.
Live performances are also something that fits into that philosophy.
You have to look at the totality of what the music experience is, and music videos are part of that, but so are live performances. If you look at the way we have reinvented Unplugged over the last couple of years, it’s an evolution that happened because of the way the audience consumes music. They want to be told what’s out there, what’s exciting, what’s new, what’s fresh. And then they want to know that it’s at their fingertips because they are constantly musically multitasking and they really rely on us for that curation and editorial voice.
MTV provides that voice and authority across a great deal of digital platforms and that has really helped you stay at the cutting edge of the music experience.
Part of our strategy is to make sure that all of those things tie together. We might do a live stream with an artist, and that live stream isn’t existing in a vacuum on MTV.com. We have their music video across all the channels really promoting to that live stream and maybe an interview. We make sure we harness that reach across all of those MTV branded platforms. What we’ve done is allow the audience to take the brand with them. Our video premieres can live on our branded player and pop up on the artist’s website. It doesn’t all necessarily have to happen on MTV platforms. It’s recognition that the audience goes back and forth. They’re an on-the-go, On Demand musically multitasking generation. You can also see the success of certain artists directly related to how they communicate with their fans on a regular basis. Fans have come to expect that. They don’t necessarily demand the mystery surrounding an artist. They want to know everything about the artist they love. They are also hungry to constantly get music or some form of musical expression from artists on a more regular basis.
The MTV Video Music Awards are certainly one of the premiere events in the music industry every year. What can we expect this time out?
You can certainly look forward to amazing performances. The thing about every artist who is performing this year is that they are coming to kill it. The bar is so high for that stage. They are not going to show up and just bang out their single and call it a night. We’re having incredible collaborative creative conversations with artists that really want to leave it all on the VMA stage that night and be who everybody is talking about the next day.
There is a great buzz surrounding our host, Chelsea Handler, too. She is so fearless and a big fan of Hip Hop, so I’m sure she’ll be interacting a lot with the Hip Hop artists in the house.
It’s amazing how the VMAs have grown and evolved over the years. It’s the place to be if you’re an artist now.
It really is an exciting night. We have heard so many times from artists that the Moon Man really means something to them. It really is something they aspire to accumulate in their career and put on the trophy shelf. They take great pride in creating amazing music videos.
MTV’s beginnings were heavily focused on Rock and Pop. Where does Rock and Alternative fit in today?
It’s as big as ever, and certainly where MTV2’s focus is. There is a lot of Rock integration and subgenres within Rock.Subterranean, which is on every week, is still something that celebrates indie music. Headbanger’s Ball is still going strong and has a really loyal and passionate following. We do a lot of videos and premieres on that show. mtvU is predominately indie, emerging bands as well. We use a lot of indie music in our shows. Also, if you look at the Push campaign (http://buzzworthy.mtv.com/category/push/), we lean indie and emerging, and a lot tend to come out of the indie Alternative Rock world.
How has the role of the MTV personalities evolved in recent years?
It remains very important. We just found our first Twitter jockey. This is one of the ways that the audience consumes music information is through Twitter, and it made perfect sense for us to have what we call a “TJ” who is roaming the halls of MTV and at music events and is out there talking about it. It’s a face of MTV through Twitter talking about what is happening at and on MTV.
We also have a new show on Saturday mornings called 10 On Top, which is a recap of the biggest Pop culture things that happened during the week. Hosting that is Lenay Dunn, who is also the face of MTV in the afternoons.
We are going to be launching another live daily show this fall. We’ll be introducing some new MTV personalities through that. Also, obviously there are some of the faces of MTV on the news side that are very credible and relatable, like Sway andShaheem Reid.
You have the coolest job, Amy.
You know, it is pretty cool. I enjoy it. I’m still having fun. It’s great to work at a brand that is still evolving.
[eQB Content by Mike Bacon]
