MTV is facing a near 25% drop in viewership in their core demographic of 12-34 year olds.
MTV is facing the same thing every other traditional media (newspapers, radio, TV) is confronted with – a dwindling audience. Why? Because young people aren’t watching TV like they use to, instead they are spending the most time with other forms of media such as video games and the Internet.
MTV will launch 16 new unscripted series over the next 4½ months in order to thwart their unprecedented ratings drop.
“I don’t remember a period of ever making as much significant change at once,” says Brian Graden, president of entertainment at MTV Networks
Sean Combs, Matt Stone & Trey Parker, Donald Trump and Nick Lachey will produce the upcoming reality series.
“MTV’s fight for relevance in the digital age has led it to the same conclusion that many others rooted in the traditional media biz have come to: Big broadband traffic is certainly achievable for traditional media companies, but it isn’t easily monetized with ad dollars.”
“We’re finding out that digital isn’t the holy grail that everyone thought,” says one channel insider.
Great!!! The nail in the coffin for Mtv
The ratings drop is because they don’t play any music anymore….
That’s such a horrible business strategy. You’re not going to get viewers by starting my shows like Bromance and Paris Hilton’s BFF. They need to think quality, not quantity.
MTV…mmm maybe try good shows or show rock video’s or maybe grow up….or you could be what you really wanted to be and thats a teen porn channel.
it’s about time that mtv died
larry .. i couldn’t agree more
“MTV will launch 16 new unscripted series over the next 4½ months in order to thwart their unprecedented ratings drop.”
Well, that’s the problem…
Maybe if they actually showed music videos?
Actually, MTV ratings dropped when they played music videos (mid nineties). I know its a popular belief that the demise of MTV is the lack of videos, but really..not true. If MTV stuck with videos they would have been DEAD a decade ago. MTV’s popularity rose in the eighties when they played Bowie, Michael Jackson, etc. That’s when superstars and creative geniuses ruled the world. Just check out the BOWIE video China Girl which was on repeat 20 times a day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qjTStVY6Hk
MTV ratings started to diminish in the mid nineties post Nirvana which gave birth to reality TV ‘The Real World’
Now, I enjoy music videos as much as everybody else does, but you can’t sustain ratings with crap (music videos) being pumped out.
you can have ratings if you don’t play the same video’s over and over and of course have 20 minutes of commercial breaks and dumb ass VJ’s.if 25,000 viewers can keep some of these realality tv shows on, then an all video channel would do ok.
I’ll watch a little Bromance for the lolz.
Koar .. how could have the videos been on the decline? The whole purpose of the channel was to play videos instead of blonde twins screwing guys in a random house.
Is Guns N Roses really GNR with only Axl?
Is Mtv a music channel with reality shows?
Another dying story of the music industry? Crap.
ihugs.
Nobody cares about MTV because MTV doesn’t care about music (or viewers, for that matter).
This story has absolutely nothing to do with the death spiral of the music industry, as MTV has virtually nothing to do with music.
“MTV will launch 16 new unscripted series over the next 4½ months in order to thwart their unprecedented ratings drop.”
Because having nothing but the most vapid and vacuous trainwreck reality shows for the last couple of years has had absolutely nothing to do with the downward trend in viewership, right?
MTV became the beacon for self-serving, vapid, narcissistic and repugnant programing. Perfect fodder for Bush era America.
Now that the bling era of “I got mine, you get your own” is crashing and burning, it should come as no surprise that the network largely responsible for ass-droppings such as Paris Hilton, “The Real World”, “Cribs” and “Pimp My Ride” is being abandoned.
Mass media is dead, folks.
Could it be the problem is that their core demographic is 12-34 year olds? I shudder to imagine what a 12yo and 34yo in that demographic have in common….
Like all things, it became a victim of it’s success. When the idea is growth, you take chances. When the idea is maintaining a behemoth, it’s safe, predictable, by the book, focus groups, etc. And from then on it’s just downhill. If you want to remain relevant, you have to be willing to take missteps. If you want to be vital twenty years down the line, you have to be able to endure good times and bad times. mTV was more about avoiding dips than staying relevant. Sometime in the mid 90’s it became about special effects, bling, mansions, etc, & things quit resonating with the public. I have no doubt that they experienced a decline after what videos had become by the late 90’s. Marylin Manson might have been the last true video star.
But going back to videos in this day of age wouldn’t make any more sense than starting a top 40 radio station. They’d be smarter to just rename the station.
h8 u mtv
“But going back to videos in this day of age wouldn’t make any more sense than starting a top 40 radio station. They’d be smarter to just rename the station.”
Well said.
There probably isn’t a market for a station that’s 90% videos that is large enough to sustain something like MTV (that’s what they have Palladia and such, for, true niche channels with niche revenue streams). There’s a place for real music networks on TV, it’s just not a very large place.
My real wish is just that music-oriented publications, blogs, etc., stop confusing the issue by trying present MTV in discussion as if it has anything to do with music.
“Actually, MTV ratings dropped when they played music videos (mid nineties)”.
I know for a fact there is a demand for music videos….. just read the post above mentioning videos…. the time period you are talking about is when Mtv started to shorten the video clips and went heavy on the rap rotation……jeese…..KOAR are clueless dinosaurs..
Mtv should move back to the video format and start breaking new artist like they did when they was Mtv
mtv died the day the music died
Videos will not keep MTV afloat, look at fuse! If every one wanted to watch videos, they would be watching fuse! MTV ratings drop has nothing to do with showing rap, that kept them alive. As bad as a lot of the rap videos are, They rock videos are just as bad or worse! People standing around playing unplugged guitars and jumping around offbeat does not make for a good watch!
(By the way, I am a rock artist)
Umm…are the shows they have now really “unscripted”? Maybe those people from “Next” or whatever really do come up with those rhyming puns on the spot.