TORONTO, ON - Reality TV star Lauren Conrad visits the MuchMusic Headquarters at the CTVGlobemedia building. (Photo Credit: MuchMusic)
Tired of music-less music television? Blame the economy. And YouTube. Oh yeah, and Lauren Conrad.
When CTVglobemedia laid off over a hundred employees late last year, mainly from the company’s arts and entertainment channels, shows that weren’t raking in the ratings fell victim to budget cuts, according to CBC.ca.
Conrad’s claim to fame, “The Hills,” survived on MTV and so did the bevy of reality TV shows that dominate MuchMusic’s primetime schedule but music journalism staples TheNewMusic and Going Coastal got the ax. Both shows provided fans with intelligent insight into indie bands and even broke many new acts into the business.
Much’s more grown up counterpart, MuchMoreMusic, also suffered a grim fate in the massive cutbacks. The channel has been pillaged of all original content and will only continue to air reruns and U.S content.
It may be easy to shovel the responsibility onto the suits, but the CTV corporation isn’t the Grinch Who Stole Music. It’s just about changing with the times, says MuchMusic associate producer Katya Diakow.
“A lot of people thought reality programming would go away, but it hasn't. So, [we’ve] found ways to adapt to this shift. We've had to; it's a matter of evolution,” she says.
In a recent issue, EyeWeekly newspaper delved into the significance of this pop culture evolution with a feature article chronicling MuchMusic’s battle to remain relevant to a fanbase born into endless technology and raised on user-generated content. Fittingly titled, “But the little girls understand,” the piece voiced concerns that television has “killed the video star” and that, with the onslaught of mindless pop culture programming, “we now have a generation with access to everything [and] insight into nothing.”
Chandler Levack, pop music critic and author of the article, says she thinks it’s a shame the station she grew up watching has now let go of most of her preferred programs.
“To think that they’re not really interested in being an educational tool for music lovers anymore makes me sad and nostalgic for my youth.”
Levack says she remembers being so passionate about her favourite artists that when a new Strokes video was airing on Much, she’d practically run home to see it.
“While I think kids still care about music, they totally don’t want to experience the culture the same way,” she says.
“MuchMusic has had to reinvent itself. Kids won’t sit in front of the TV at a certain time to watch a stream of videos in random order anymore, they go watch them online on their iPhones.”
Accordingly, MTV Canada and MuchMusic have banked on expanding their music brand online and oh boy, has it worked. Don’t let the layoffs fool you, TV may be suffering but online numbers are soaring. MTV.ca and MuchMusic.com video streams saw a 40% increase in 2008 and set industry-wide records with166 million combined video streams last year, according to a CTV press statement released last month.
In the memo, Brad Schwartz, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Much MTV Group, said, “Over the past few years, we have actively steered our company to be multi-platform in everything we do allowing us to be everywhere our audience demands us to be.”
That audience demanded a significant online presence so Much and MTV channeled their inner Madonnas and made constant reinvention part of a strategy of staying power in a quick-changing youth culture.
“It’s clear that our audience is super media and tech-savvy,” Diakow says, “So we're on Facebook and Flickr and other social networking sites. I think we're one of the better examples of how a TV station can connect with audiences using multiple platforms.”
Former MuchMoreMusic senior producer Siobhan Grennan agrees.
“MuchMusic is the jewel in that CTV crown… They are the number one brand in Canada,” says Grennan, who produced content for MuchMoreMusic for over 17 years before leaving the network to start her own business.
“Much is just continuing to create for their fanbase and broadening that brand,” she says.
Robert Ostfield, the business development and advertising manager of entertainment news site, andPOP.com knows the importance of marketing music content for the web and using it to compliment traditional TV.
Television advertising revenues are drying up amid the economic slowdown, Ostfield says, so concentrated content is the way to go.
“Airing just music videos results in an unreliable audience which makes it harder to attract advertisers. Regular programming plus an extended brand online creates much more lucrative business opportunities to target audiences.”
In other words, if a 14-year-old girl from Barrie is in the MuchOnDemand studio audience screaming her head off for that reality TV girl group, chances are she’ll watch a “Girlicious” marathon on MuchMusic.com and buy that Clearasil skin cream advertised on both mediums.
In a recession, teen girls have dollar shaped bulls-eyes tattooed on their backs that only music TV execs can see. Music videos are relegated to entertaining the wee hours of the morning and VJs exist solely to facilitle fan encounters with celebrities.
With rising ratings and a declining economy, it's hard to imagine music television returning to the way it was.
Move over millennials, the YouTube generation is here to stay.
A LOOK BACK Take a trip back through the memories that made MuchMusic and MTV staples in music history.
