Transcript
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2
Artisit StatementI decided to base my 6 X 6 off of the art movement surrealism. I chose to do surrealism because I have never attempted to paint anything like it before and I had always thought that the whole movement was interesting. When doing some research I came across a work of art by Román Cortés called “Dalí Does Escher.” I liked the combination of Dalí’s “The Persistence of Memory” and Escher’s “Hand with Reflecting Sphere.” I used those pieces as my inspiration for my work and then gave it some personal meaning. I have always liked the melting clocks in Dalí’s work so I chose to do a spinoff of that in mine by changing the clock into an I Phone. I took the sphere from Escher’s work and morphed it into a teardrop shape. I think it does really resemble the “Dalí does Escher” piece of work but at the same time it is very different. Overall I am happy with what I did because I have never done anything even remotely similar to surrealism let alone have painted it.
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4
Futurism and theNew Manifesto
800 225 5624mag.rochester.edu
Memorial Art Gallery500 University AveRochester, NY
Feburary 20, 2009 6:30pm
Umberto Boccioni was an Italian painter and sculptor who infl uenced the aesthetics of Futurism. He began the Futurism movement with his manifesto that was published in 1909. Since then Futurism has spread throughout the art world. Guest speaker Joshua Mehigan will recount historical works along with his own contemporary manifesto.
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Artist Statement
Society often makes us think that some things are more ideal than another. I decided to question what society says and kind of show how ridiculous some of our ideals are. In our culture now a day the most ideal woman is very thin and of course has those womanly curves. Although this is the ideal, most women do not have this body shape which makes no sense because how is this what everyone wants when it is the shape most difficult to obtain. This project is important because we need to reshape the ideals of our society. Not every woman has the perfect body and not everybody likes the aforementioned body type but society still throws it at us wherever we look. I used photography that I found on the Internet and Photoshop to create an image that conflicts with what society says is the best. I wanted to have people question my project because of the huge numbers on the measuring tape that opposes the skinny girl that is measuring her waist. I believe that this is a problem that society needs to address and maybe this could be one step towards fixing it.
6
Cabl
e te
levis
ion
mad
e MTV
bot
h po
ssib
le a
nd n
eces
sary
. . T
houg
h it
had
been
in u
se -
deliv
erin
g ne
twor
k br
oadc
asts
to re
mote
parts of th
e US via surplus military coaxial cable
wee
k. Fu
rther
mor
e, M
TV's
succ
ess a
s a p
latfo
rm to
sel
l was
imm
edia
tely
app
aren
t as '
63 p
erce
nt o
f the
surv
ey re
spon
dents
said th
ey purchased an artist's album after
dubi
ous �
nanc
ial fo
otin
g, th
e im
port
ance
of M
TV b
ecam
e ap
pare
nt e
arly
on.
But
this
impo
rtan
ce w
as n
o ac
cide
nt. M
TV’s p
op cultu
ral prowess was the product of intense
s ince the early 1950s, cable emerged as a key US growth industry internatio
nally in th
e mid-1
970s and ea
rly 1
980s
. On
the
�rst
Tue
sday
of M
arch
1 981, after much planning on how to penetrate the expanding basic cable marke, th
e W
arner-A
mex
Sate
llite E
nter
tain
men
t Com
pany
laun
ched
MT
V
a 24-hour 'video music network', that would radiate its �rst programming roughly �ve m
onths l
ater
on 1 A
ugus
t. Tho
ugh
with
out m
uch
fanf
are
and
on
e ven more importantly, Pittman's participant-observation practices, relatin
g the qualita
tive exp
erien
ce o
f his
own
'psy
chog
raph
ic' g
roup
, his
sta
tus
as
the music into all of our radio and TV spots. If you have a single... [
Irene Cara's '
What a Fe
eling'] p
layin
g on
the r
adio
, the
spot
s are
like
cro
ss-p
oll
pollination. This process was perhaps summed up best by Gary LeMel, Columbia Pictu
res'
Colfax d
ivisi
on e
xecu
tive,
Hol
lyw
ood
sees
a w
ay to
get
to distil such emotions, for understanding how to
better p
redict its t
arget
dem
ogra
phic'
s pre
fere
nces
and
hab
its, b
ut fu
r the
r
or in Raymond Williams' terms, stru
ctures of feelin
g into persu
asive m
oods or e
mot
ive cu
rrenc
y to
bet
ter i
nspi
re it
s cu
ltu
r
al authority. Viacom purchased the MTV Netw
orks in Septe
mber o
f 198
5; it
also
acqu
ired
from
War
ner C
omm
unic
ati o
ns
t
he second half interest in
Showtime. Viacom's a
cquisitio
n of the M
TV N
etw
orks
repr
esen
ted
a sy
nerg
y w
ithin
a s
yn
as the umbrella company already included several c
hannels: M
TV, N
ickel
odeo
n an
d VH
-1. H
owev
er, M
TV it
self
wa
was the most im
portant property
in the M
TV N
etwork
s. The n
etw
ork's
abilit
y to
capt
ivat
e yo
ung
audi
ence
s t h
r
r
atings in the early 1990s, MTV has a
lway
s rem
ained
auth
orita
tive
in p
op c
ultu
re p
rodu
ctio
n, i n
no small p
art because of it
s relentle
ss se
arch
for e
mer
gent
cultu
ral f
orm
s fo
r inc
orpo
ratio
incorporatio
n into its pro
ductions.
This
feed
back
pro
cess
is c
alle
d 'c
ool h
untin
g' w
where researchers visi
t teens'
homes
, han
gout
in th
eir b
edro
oms a
nd le
arn
w
hat moves t
hem emotio
nally,
aesth
etica
lly. S
ome
such
rese
arch
ers
w
ants to
'cre
ate a
whole n
ew b
rand
or...
pro
duct
with
a com
pany t
hat ta
rget
s a sp
eci�
c
audience,' e
xplai
n D. G
ordo
n
rese
arch
and
the
culm
inat
ion
of n
ew te
chni
ques
and
tech
nolo
gies
. Whi
le b
road
cast
telev
ision had
develo
ped ar
ound a paradigm of replicating
Thei
r sur
veys
pro
vide
d ev
iden
ce th
at 8
5 pe
r cen
t of t
hose
pol
led
expr
esse
d ex
citem
ent o
ver a
cable ch
annel
that
merg
ed televisio
n and rock anl
, whi
ch w
as u
sed
to e
licit
the
coop
erat
ion
of th
e re
cord
com
pani
es, a
dver
tiser
s and
cable
operato
rs needed to
launch
the project. B
ut it
succ
essf
ul sh
ow fo
rmul
as a
nd st
rivin
g fo
r bro
ad p
opul
arity
, the
pro
lifer
atio
n of
cabl
e infra
struct
ure deve
loped
conco
mita
ntly w
ith programming
a
s a c
ultu
ral d
oubl
e ag
ent,
met
abol
izin
g th
e de
tails
of h
is liv
ed e
xper
ienc
es th
at w
ere c
entra
l to its
succ
ess.
In O
ctober o
f 1982 AC Nielsen rel
a lo
t of [
free]
adv
ertis
ing
and
mar
ketin
g fo
r its
targ
et a
udie
nce.
The
targ
et au
dience
for M
TV is th
e sam
e targ
et fo
r pictures. Y
ou need the
12
to 2
5 de
mog
raph
ic. B
ut, M
TV's
inno
vatio
ns in
vid
eo m
usic
also
rede
�ned
the s
truct
ure of p
op expre
ssive fo
rms. I
n the early 1980s,
Pitt
man
, co-
foun
der o
f MTV
, com
men
ts o
n th
e st
ylist
ic in
nova
tions
dev
elop
ed b
y MTV: W
hat w
e've in
troduce
d with
MTV is a
non-na
for
m. A
s opp
osed
to co
nven
tiona
l tel
evisi
on, w
here
you
rely
on
plot
and
contin
uity, w
e rely on m
ood and emotion. W
e make you
fe
el a
cer
tain
way
as o
ppos
ed to
you
wal
king
aw
ay w
ith a
ny p
artic
ular
know
ledge. H
e contin
ues with
a McC
luhanian sense of
opp
ortu
nism
, You
're d
ealin
g w
ith a
cultu
re o
f TV
babi
es..,
wha
t kid
s can
't do to
day is
follo
w things t
oo long. T
hey get bored a
di
stra
cted
, the
ir m
inds
wan
der.
If in
form
atio
n is
pres
ente
d to
them
in ti
ght f
ragm
ents th
at don't n
ecessa
rily
follo
w each other
, k
ids c
an c
ompr
ehen
d th
at. P
art o
f MTV
's in
nova
tive
dom
inan
ce h
as b
een not s
imply co
ncocti
ng new form
s of su
rveillance
its q
uick
pac
e an
d �a
shy
grap
hics
mad
e it
a va
luab
le as
set f
or adve
rtisin
g reve
nue and its st
yle was b
ecomi
p
opul
ar a
nd h
ighl
y in
�uen
tial i
n ot
her m
edia
. In 19
96 th
e MTV N
etworks l
aunched M
TV-2,which would
allo
w M
TV to
focu
s mor
e on
airi
ng tr
aditi
onal
pro
gram
ming, ra
ther t
han music
videos. Desp
ite slo
uch
, lik
e at
Look
-Loo
k, co
ntra
ct o
ut their s
ervice
s. If a
client w
a
stra
tegi
es o
f tar
getin
g ke
y (t
hose
with
hig
h sp
endi
ng p
ower
) aud
ienc
es, k
now
n as
'qua
lity
dem
ogra
phics
'. Thu
s, au
dience
rese
arch w
as no lo
nger only a
a w
ay o
f mea
surin
g po
pula
rity
afte
r the
fact
, but
rath
er a
way
of p
rodu
cing
pop
ular
ity th
roug
h th
e co
nstru
ctio
n of a
targ
et audience“. W
hen Bob Pittman
it e
ntai
led,
and
inte
nsify
ing
a st
rate
gic,
if u
neve
n, c
onve
rgen
ce o
f the
mea
ns o
f cul
tura
l exp
ress
ion. A
s the m
usic in
dustry became in
creaslin
i
nsep
arab
le fr
om m
usic
vid
eos a
nd M
TV's
livin
g ro
om m
arke
ting
plat
form
, so
too
did
Holly
wood. In
the early
1980s, movie so
undtracks
bec
ame
criti
cal c
ompo
nent
s of �
lm m
arke
ting,
revo
lvin
g ar
ound
the
mar
riage
of p
opul
ar m
usic arti
sts/ t
een idols w
ith th
e visual
dra
ma
of �
lm c
lips a
nd m
ini-m
ovie
trai
lers
. As G
ordo
n W
eave
r of P
aram
ount
Pict
ures e
xplains: T
hat's because th
e origin
o
rigin
al in
tent
of t
hese
mus
ic v
ideo
s is t
o pr
omot
e th
e m
ovie
, alth
ough
ther
e's sp
illoverb
ene�t to th
e record w
h
t
he m
ovie
is p
laye
d... [
Para
mou
nt P
ictu
res d
istrib
utes
the
clips
to M
TV and oth
er t
elevision outle
ts, as w
el
l
ocal
ly to
clu
bs.]
We
do th
is th
roug
h ou
r o�
ces i
n New
York
and our 4
3 advertisin
g agencies arou
coun
try.
..It's
a g
odse
nd. T
he d
emog
raph
ics ar
e so
per
fect
with
music
video. Paramount's
p
op c
lass
ic, F
lash
danc
e (1
983)
, bro
ke �
rst g
round in
this s
ort ofproductio
n
d
istrib
utio
n st
rate
gy. A
fter P
aram
ount spent c
lose to US $3
pro
mot
ing Fl
ashdan
ce, W
eaver explained: W
e
beg
an c
ondu
ctin
g re
sear
c h fo
r the
via
bilit
y of
a st
atio
n th
at c
ombi
ned
his g
ener
atio
n's t
wo
favo
rite p
astim
es w
atch
ing TV and lis
tening to
the
radi
o - i
t was
alre
ady
in th
e c o
ntex
t of t
he e
xist
ing
know
ledg
e th
at y
oung
urb
an a
dults
(esp
ecial
ly fe
male
s)aged
18-49 49 w
ere the prim
e consu
cons
umer
s of
the
type
s of
goo
ds a
dver
tised
on
TV'. T
hus,
Rolli
ng S
tone
Mag
azin
e de
scrib
ed Pi
ttman
's pen
chan
t for m
arket research and
a w
illi n
gnes
s to
disc
ard
trad
ition
al 'w
isdom
' in
favo
r of p
ursu
ing
the
'real
mea
ning
' of t
he d
ata c
ompile
d by p
hone calls
, sales- t
rend
anal
yses
and
sur
veys
of t
he M
ood
of th
e N
atio
n. M
TV b
egan
as a
n el
abor
ate
simul
tane
ous t
arget
ing an
d pro
duction of
both
an
audi
ence
and
form
s of
alre
ady-
popu
lar m
edia
cul
ture
. WAS
EC's
audi
ence
rese
arch
team
, led by M
arsh
all
Cohe
n, d
isco
vere
d th
at n
o ch
anne
l was
spec
i�ca
lly ta
rget
ingt
arge
ting
Amer
ica's
mos
t a�
uent d
emo
grap
hic
grou
p, p
ost-
war
'bab
y-bo
omer
s' ag
ed 1
2-34
and
beg
an te
stin
g th
e M
TV
conc
ept a
t len
gth
with
repr
esen
tativ
es o
f the
targ
et d
emo
Nielsen released a survey of MTV viewers, indicating 85 percent of the 2,000 re
spondents in the int
VP of Brand Strategy and Planning, explains ho
the corporation uses such 'instruments' to
simultaneously represent and direct p
popular culture: The research e�orts
at MTV are certainl
legendary. Ever since
beginning, there's been
a kind of feverish addicti
to research and understand
young people.... In virtually ev
meeting that we have, research
kicks the meeting o�. There's a signintended demographic group watched MTV, and those that did viewed it a
n average of 4.6 hours a
and S. Lee, Look- Look co-founders, they take out information to assist in
inspiring project d
esig
in helping them market the new product,even in naming the product, and th
en eventually test
They use our database to recruit kids to test the products out, s
tu� like th
at. But such apparatus
Networks. The network's ability
to captivate young aud
audiences througand �ash
viewing a cli
p fe
atur
ing
the
artis
t's m
usic
'. Thi
s suc
cess
invo
lved
bot
h ex
pand
ing
venu
es fo
r eng
agin
g th
e 19
80s'
pop
cultu
re exp
losion and th
e excitement
of industrial cultural production, social research, are also further enclosed as competit preferences and habits, but further to distil such emotions, or in Raymond Williams’
terms, structures of feeling into persuasive moods or emotivecurrency to better
inspire its cultural authority. Viacom purchased the MTV Networks in Septem
of 1985; it also acquired from Warner Communications the second half
interest in Showtime. Viacom's acquisition of the MTV Network represented a synergy within a synergy, as the umbrella co company already included several channels: MTV,
Nickelodeon and VH-1. However, MTV itself was the most important property in the MTV
its quick pac grap
investments. This ability to create its own proprietary research, employed to realize st
or more authoritative monopoly rent, has been critical to maintaining MTV's cultur
authority. Todd Cunningham, MTV's Senior VP of Brand Strategy and Planning, e
how the corporation uses such 'instruments' to simultaneously represent and
it entailed, and intensifying a strategic, if uneven, convergence of the means
trailers. As Gordon Weaver of Paramount Pictures explains: That’s beca
use because the original intent of these music videos is to promote th
movie, although there's spillover bene�t to the record when the movi
strategy. After Paramount spent close to US $3 million prom
Flashdance, Weaver explained: We incorporated the music
into all of our radio and TV spots. If you have a single... [Ire
for its target audience. The target audience for M
is the same target for pictures. You need the 12
to 25 demographic. But, MTV's innovations in
video music also rede�ned the structure of p
we've introduced with MTV is a non-n
narrative form. As opposed to conve
with a culture of TV babies
what kids can't do today
been not si
simply con
to be
of c
ultu
ral e
xpre
ssio
n. A
s the
mus
ic in
dust
ry b
ecam
e in
crea
sing
ly in
sepa
rabl
e fr
om m
usic
vid
eos a
nd M
TV's
is
pla
yed.
.. [Pa
ram
ount
Pic
ture
s dis
trib
utes
the
clip
s to
MTV
and
oth
er te
levi
sion
out
lets
, as w
ell
cl
ubs.]
We
do th
is th
roug
h ou
r o�
ces
in N
ew Y
ork
and
our 4
3 ad
vert
isin
g ag
enci
es a
roun
d th
e
cou
ntry
...It's
a g
odse
nd. T
he d
emog
raph
ics a
re so
per
fect
with
mus
ic v
ideo
. Par
amou
nt's
sau
cy
pop
clas
sic,
Fla
shda
nce
(198
3), b
roke
�rs
t gro
und
in th
is s
ort o
f pro
duct
ion
and
dist
ribut
[I
rene
Car
a's '
Wha
t a F
eelin
g'] p
layi
ng o
n th
e ra
dio,
the
spot
s ar
e lik
e cr
oss-
polli
nati.
Th
is pr
oces
s was
per
haps
sum
med
up
best
by
Gar
y Le
Mel
, Col
umbi
a Pi
ctur
es' C
ol
d
ivisi
on e
xecu
tive,
Hol
lyw
ood
sees
a w
ay to
get
a lo
t of [
free]
adv
ertis
ing
and
po
p ex
pres
sive
form
s. In
the
early
198
0s, B
ob P
ittm
an, c
o-fo
unde
r of
MTV
, com
men
ts o
n th
e st
ylis
tic in
nova
tions
dev
elop
ed b
y M
TV: W
ha
te
levi
sion
, whe
re y
ou re
ly o
n pl
ot a
nd c
ontin
uity
, we
rely
on
mo
and
em
otio
n. W
e m
ake
you
feel
a c
erta
in w
ay a
s op
pose
d to
you
wal
king
aw
ay w
ith a
ny p
artic
ular
kno
wle
dge.
He
co
w
ith a
McC
luha
nian
sens
e of
opp
ortu
nism
, You
're d
is fo
llow
thin
gs to
o lo
ng. T
hey
get b
ored
and
d
istr
acte
d, th
eir m
inds
wan
der.
If in
form
atio
i
s pre
sent
ed to
them
in ti
ght f
ragm
ents
th
at d
on't
nece
ssar
ily fo
llow
eac
h ot
h
k
ids c
an c
ompr
ehen
d th
at. P
art o
f
M
TV's
inno
vativ
e do
min
ance
has
new
form
s of
surv
eilla
nce
for u
nder
stan
ding
how
pred
ict i
ts ta
rget
d
emo
livin
g ro
om m
arke
ting
plat
form
, so
too
did
Hol
lyw
ood.
In th
e ea
rly 1
980s
, mov
ie
soun
dtra
cks
beca
me
criti
cal c
ompo
nent
s of �
lm m
arke
ting,
re
volv
ing
arou
nd th
e m
arria
ge o
f pop
ular
m
usic
art
ists/
teen
idol
s with
the
visu
al d
ram
a of �
lm
clip
s and m
ini-m
ov
mad
e it
a va
luab
le a
sset
for a
dver
tisin
g re
venu
e an
d its
styl
e w
as b
ecom
ing
popu
lar a
nd h
ighl
y in
�uen
tial i
n ot
her m
edia
. In
1996
the
MTV
Net
wor
ks la
unch
ed M
TV-2
, which
would allo
w M
TV to fo
cus more on airin
g traditio
nal programming, rather
This
feed
back
pro
cess
is c
alle
d 'co
ol h
untin
g', w
here
rese
arch
ers v
isit
teen
s' ho
mes
, han
gout
in th
eir b
edro
oms
and
lear
n w
hat m
oves
them
em
otio
nally
, aes
thet
ically
. Som
e such
rese
archers,
like at L
ook-Loo
right
ther
e to
the
orga
niza
tion
that
,' Hey
, you
've
got t
o pa
y at
tent
ion
to w
hat t
he v
iew
ers
are
abou
t and
wha
t kin
ds o
f thi
ngs a
re h
appe
ning
with
them
,' whe
the
its q
uasi
-soc
ial s
cien
tists
to p
eopl
e's h
omes
'whe
re [t
hey]
get
the
grea
t cha
nce
to a
ctua
lly g
o ou
t and
ri�e
thro
ugh
kids
' clo
sets
and
go th
roug
h th
eir m
usic
coll
Onc
e a
year
, MTV
rese
arch
ers p
erfo
rm w
hat t
hey
call,
'eth
nogr
aphy
'. Cun
ning
ham
det
ails
: An
ethn
ogra
phy
stud
y..,.
is a
stud
y th
at b
asic
ally
goe
s out
and
trie
s
to u
nder
stan
d th
e di
�ere
nces
bet
wee
n au
dien
ces -
to tr
y to
unc
over
nua
nces
that
mak
e th
em s
epar
ate
from
oth
er o
nes..
.. We
go th
roug
h th
eir m
usic
colle
ct
We
go to
nig
htcl
ubs w
ith th
em....
We
shut
the
door
in th
eir b
edro
oms
and
talk
to th
em a
bout
issu
es th
at th
ey fe
el a
re re
ally
impo
rtan
t to
them
. We
talk
with
abou
t wha
t it's
like
to d
ate
toda
y; w
hat i
t's li
ke d
ealin
g w
ith th
eir p
aren
ts; w
hat t
hing
s st
ress
them
out
the
mos
t; w
hat t
hing
s are
real
ly o
n th
e he
arts
and
than
mus
ic v
ideo
s. D
espi
te sl
ouch
ing
ratin
gs in
the
early
199
0s, M
TV h
as a
lway
s rem
aine
d au
thor
itativ
e in
pop
cul
ture
pro
duct
ion,
in n
o sm
all p
art b
ecau
se o
f its
relen
tless
searc
h for e
mergent c
ultural fo
rms fo
rincorporatio
n into its productions This
cont
ract
out
their
serv
ices.
If a c
lient
wan
ts to
'cre
ate a
whole new brand or... p
roduct with a company that targets a
pro
ject
des
igner
s, in
hel
ping
them
mar
ket t
he new product, e
ven in naming the product, and then eventually test
Th
ey use
our
dat
abas
e to
recr
uit k
ids t
o test
the products out, stu� like that. But such apparatuses of industri
cultu
ral p
rodu
ctio
n, so
cial r
esea
rch, a
re al
so fu
rther enclosed as competitive investments.This ability to cr
cr
eate
its o
wn
prop
rieta
ry re
sear
ch, e
mployed to
realize stronger or more authoritative monopoly re
has
bee
n cr
itica
l to
main
taining MTV's cultural authority. Todd Cunningham, MTVs Senior
it be shifts in the ratings, shifts in, kind of viewership beh
behavior and patterns, to the more qualitative kin
o
f touchy-feely things of attitudinal changes an
things like that. As Cunningham explains,
MTV uses forms of more traditio
nal
research, such as ratings, and doing
more than 200 focus groups
per year. However fo
r MTV
research e�orts it is
spec
i�c a
udien
ce,' e
xpla
in D
. Gor
don
and
S. Le
e, Lo
ok- Lo
ok co-fo
unders, they take out information to assist in inspiring
impo
rtan
t not
to d
o th
em in
trad
ition
al p
lace
s and
geo
grap
hies, frequently doing focus groups on basketball courts
,
Ofte
n th
ough
, MTV
will
send
for in
stance, or store parking lots. Of
We have them show us their favorite clothing out�ts, w
hat they wear to parties, som
e things from their photo album
s and things that which really m
ean something to them
. And then we're allow
ed to com
e back and translate that into programm
ing opportunities or just insights in general about what the audience actually does. It is through these m
ethods of surveillance that MTV is able to adm
inistrate through simultaneously leading and following. It concomitantly 'democratizes' its production process, w
hile implicitly negotiatingthe subm
ission
of audiences to their authority - conforming the structures of feeling of an expanding population to new
sets of rents, propertied authority, but also fantastic and targeted spectacles so that 'none may escape'. And w
hile this strategy involves targeting particular aggregate groups, audiences, often it entails using speci�c mem
bers of those groups as intermediaries, key types of consum
ers - recruited wittingly or unw
ittingly as double agents for capital. As Michael J. Wolf, MTV's current president and chief operating o�cer' recently com
mented:
Advertisers would rather connect with that one alpha consumer [young trendsetter] vs. three beta consum
ers ... We understand that audience, and w
e can help them do that. Trendsetting, 'Alpha', consum
ers themselves are increasingly interpolated into the m
eans of capital circulation.
Such techniques have been deeply successful for the network and have set standards for media brand strategies. In a 2002 speech, Sum
ner Redstone elaborates, MTV is hotter than ever as the #1
rates at $135,000t o $150,000 for a 30-seconds pot.19 In 1999, MTV w
as ranked number six am
ong basic cable channels, worth roughly U
S$400 million in sales.The M
TV Netw
orks total annual
(2006) sales are estimated at US$1.3 billion, employing 1100 people. And, now
more than ever M
TV and its international network brands (see Plate 4) serve a critical role in the inter
international division of labor as a hub for a variety of other corporate interests. For instance, MTV's international reach now
allows H
ollywood studios and record lab
to coordinate product releases simultaneously around the w
orld. It is an international class strategy and imperialistic project in the plainest
terms. This is a project within which the structure and control of social environments is central. 360 0 of M
TV As MTV
2001/2002 Media Kit suggests cavalierly: 'Advertising is an image business, m
y friend - you
got to be seen in all the right circles
network with the 12- 24 set for 10 straight years, fueled by the breakaway hit 'The O
sbournes,' as well as long-tim
e favorites Real World and Total Request Live. O
sbournes, in fact, is achieving broadcast-l
MTV The network's diversi�cation into three prongs - MTV (cable), M
TV.com (internet) and M
TV2 (digital cable, but available to antennae in some locales) - is consciously designed to increase the im
pact of advertisi
As the Media Kit explains: The next generation media experience? You're lookin' at it. Each MTV platform
has distinct strengths. MTV 3600 exploits the best of each, then integrates them
to maxim
ize the impact
but further to distil such emotions, or in Raymond Williams' terms, structures of feeling into persuasive m
oods or emotive currency to better inspire its cultural authority.Viacom
purchased the MTV N
etworks in
September of 1985; it also acquired from Warner Communications the second half interest in Showtim
e. Viacom's acquisition of the M
TV Networks represented a synergy w
ithin a synergy,as the umbrella com
p
a lready included several channels: MTV, Nickelodeon and VH-1. However, M
TV itself was the m
ost important property in the M
TV Netw
orks. The network's ability to captivate young au
of a
ny p
rogr
amm
ing
even
t. O
ne e
vent
+ th
ree
scre
ens
= li
mitl
ess
poss
ibili
ties.
Whe
reve
r the
y go
, the
re y
ou [a
dver
tiser
s] a
re'. T
he id
ea o
f a 3
600
stra
tegy
orig
inat
es in
mili
tary
Info
rmat
ion
Opera
tions
, ref
errin
g to co
mpas
s-hea
dings o
r 'azim
uths'
rela
ted
to m
appin
g, nav
igati
on a
nd ta
rget
ing.It
also re
fers to
'full-s
pectrum
' intellig
ence and surveilla
nce; knowing all of th
e conditions of a given battle
or 'operatio
n'. 3
600
also
oft
en refers to a fu
ll-im
mer
sion
virtu
al e
nviro
nm
ttle simulatio
ns are curre
ntly th
e cutti
ng edge
of t
rain
ing
grou
nd su
ppor
t for
air
strik
es (a
nd th
e dr
eam
of t
he e
lect
roni
c ga
min
g in
dust
ry).
The
ter
The
term
rece
ntly
als
o re
fers
to g
over
nmen
t and
cor
pora
te p
erso
nnel
eva
luat
ions
, whe
re e
mpl
oyee
s are
eva
luat
ed th
roug
h ag
greg
ated
'ful
l-spe
ctru
m' s
urve
ys o
f all
co-w
orke
rs ra
ther
than
onl
y im
med
iate
supe
riors
. In m
any
way
s, al
l suc
h co
nnot
atio
ns o
f the
term
appl
y to
MTV
. 360
0 all
udes
as m
uch
to 'f
ull s
pect
rum
' tar
getin
g an
d em
ersio
n as
it d
oes f
eedb
ack a
nd ev
aluat
ion
mec
hani
sms.
Viac
om B
rand
Solu
tions
, form
ed in
the
sam
e ye
ar a
s the
360
0 in
itiat
ive,
200
1, is
an
inst
itutio
nal m
echa
nism
(in
Euro
pe a
nd th
e U
S) fo
r util
izin
g th
eir n
ew m
ulti-
plat
form
targ
etin
g st
rate
gies
to 'e
nsur
e cl
ient
s ac
hiev
e st
rong
retu
rn[s
] on
inve
st
thro
ugh
all f
orm
s of m
arke
ting
com
mun
icat
ion'
. An
impo
rtan
t par
t of t
heir
succ
ess,
they
exp
lain
, is
thei
r abi
lity
to 'u
nder
stan
d an
d in
terp
ret t
he b
ehav
ior o
f our
vie
wer
s, in
rela
tion
to T
V an
d lif
e in
gen
eral
' (via
com
bran
dsol
utio
n.co
.uk;
mtv
-med
ia.co
m).
But,
MTV
's 36
00 st
rate
gy al
so re
spon
ds to
com
petit
ive
deve
lopm
ents
in e
very
day l
ife, n
amel
y the
Inte
rnet
, cyb
er-c
omm
uniti
es an
d oth
er 'c
yber
-pra
ctice
s' Lik
e in
the
wor
kpla
ce,th
e ad
ded
mac
hine
ry a
ttac
hed
to le
isur
e pr
actic
es in
crea
se th
e am
ount
of i
nter
conn
ecte
d ta
sks
poss
ible
at o
ne ti
me;
they
incr
ease
the
rela
tive
'pro
duct
ivity
' of l
eisu
re. A
s Van
To�
er, M
TV/M
TV2/
MTV
Fil
Pres
iden
t exp
lain
s, w
e've
foun
d th
at th
is a
udie
nce
mul
ti-ta
sks
like
no o
ther
. It's
not
unu
sual
for t
hem
to b
e ta
lkin
g on
the
phon
e w
hile
they
're w
atch
ing
TV a
nd u
sing
thei
r com
pute
r to
dow
nloa
d m
usic
or IM
thei
r frie
nds.
MTV
360
resp
onds
to o
ur v
iew
ers b
y giv
ing
them
the c
hoice
s the
y wan
t.The
acce
lera
tion
and
com
pres
sion
of so
cial a
ctiv
ity (m
easu
red
in ti
me)
in th
e so-c
alled
'Net
work S
ocie
ty' is
bot
h a p
robl
em an
d op
portu
nity
for t
elev
ision
stat
ions
like
MTV
. Whi
le th
ere
are
mor
e po
ssib
le d
istr
actio
ns fr
om th
e ad
vert
isin
g m
essa
ges
rent
ed o
n th
at a
ggre
gate
d so
cial
tim
e, th
ere
are
also
rela
tivel
y m
ore
spac
es to
eng
age
soci
atte
ntio
n by
adv
ertis
ers,
ther
e ar
e m
ore
plat
form
s fo
r ind
ustr
ial c
ultu
ral p
rodu
ctio
n. In
tera
ctiv
e pr
ogra
mm
ing
even
ts c
apita
lize
on th
is s
ituat
ion.
The
GM
of M
TV, D
avid
Coh
n, e
xpla
ins '
It's a
ll abo
ut ca
stin
g a w
ider
net
. Con
trol F
reak
has
bee
n a
grat
ifyin
g su
cces
s, in
term
s of i
nter
activ
e TV.
The
show
get
s an
aver
age
of 2
50,0
00 W
eb si
te vi
sitor
s an
hour
.MTV
360 i
s not
the c
orpor
atio
n's �
rst fo
ray i
nto
'inte
ract
ive' p
rogr
amm
ing.
In 1
995,
MTV
(US)
pro
duce
d a
show
cal
led
Yack
Liv
e, w
hich
incl
uded
scro
lling
live
com
men
ts fr
om a
udie
nce
emai
ls a
s vi
deos
pla
yed.
In 1
997,
the
(US)
net
wor
k 're
inve
nted
'itse
lf af
ter s
ever
al y
ears
of d
eclin
ing
ratin
gs w
ith th
e un
veili
ng o
f a h
uge
stud
io in
the
mid
dle
of N
ew Y
ork
City
's re
cent
ly re
nova
ted
Tim
es S
quar
e. T
he s
tudi
o w
as d
esig
ned
and
stru
ctur
ed fo
r int
erac
tivity
of a
ll so
rts:
huge
win
dow
s tha
t allo
wed
ped
estri
ans t
o lo
ok in
and
perh
aps g
et ca
ught
on
cam
era,
�bro
tic in
frast
ruct
ure a
llow
ing
�exi
ble
inte
rfacin
g w
ith a
udie
nces
acr
oss a
varie
ty o
f com
mun
icatio
ns p
latfo
rms,
and �
exib
le o
utdoo
r and
indo
or ca
mer
a arc
hite
ctur
e al
low
ing
out-
of-t
he-s
tudi
o �l
min
g. T
hese
inno
vatio
ns o
n th
e la
ndsc
ape
allo
wed
for n
ew p
rogr
amm
ing
oppo
rtun
ities
, lik
e th
e 19
99 in
tera
ctiv
e ga
me
show
, Web
Rio
t. Li
kew
ise,
this
land
scap
e ak
so a
llo
for M
TV's
�ags
hip
vide
o co
untd
own
show
, Tot
al R
eque
st L
ive,
ver
sion
s of
whi
ch e
xist
(in
sim
ilar s
tudi
o la
ndsc
apes
)
from
War
saw
to M
umba
i. In
July
200
4, M
TV Eu
rope
bui
lt a s
imila
r gla
ssy s
tudi
o on
Lond
on's
Leic
este
r Squ
are
as th
e st
age
for i
ts 'E
urop
ean'
versi
on o
f TRL
. Util
izing
the W
eb (a
nd it
s optic
al in
frast
ruct
ure)
and
inte
grat
ing
new
form
s of c
omm
unic
atio
ns in
to th
eir m
onop
oly
pow
er b
ecam
e th
e ne
w w
rinkl
e in
MTV
's ta
rget
ing
stra
tegi
es. T
hese
infr
astr
uctu
res
also
ena
ble
a fe
edba
ck lo
op fo
r wha
t MTV
/MTV
2/ M
TV F
il
pres
iden
t at t
he ti
me
Van
To�
er d
escr
ibes
as
the
netw
ork'
s ta
rget
aud
ienc
e's
insa
tiabl
e hu
nger
for '
'ac
cess
and
beh
ind-
the-
scen
es in
form
atio
n'. Ex
perie
ncin
g th
e co
ntra
-dic
tions
of t
heir
wid
espr
ead
alie
natio
n fro
m p
opul
ar cu
ltura
l pro
duct
ion,
'[aud
ience
s] w
ant a
muc
h m
ore i
ndiv
idua
lized
exp
erie
nce
and
mor
e in
tera
ctio
n w
ith e
ach
othe
r and
with
the
artis
ts', e
xpla
ins
MTV
Inte
rnat
iona
l Gro
up c
hairm
an N
icho
las B
utte
rwor
th in
200
1. H
e co
ntin
ues
that
the
corp
orat
ion
plan
s to
mak
e 'c
onve
rgen
ce th
grea
t rei
nven
tion
of M
TV. W
ith M
TV 3
60, a
ll th
ree
plat
form
s ar
e di
�ere
nt b
ut c
onne
cted
',
e
mpl
oyin
g 'a
deep
er in
tegr
atio
n of
com
mun
ities
, with
the
abilit
y for
use
rs to
see
each
oth
er a
nd ta
lk to
eac
h ot
her w
here
ver t
hey a
re'. M
TV 36
0 enca
psulat
es a
relat
ive ex
pans
ion
with
in th
e in
dust
rial p
rodu
ctio
n of
cul
ture
, inc
orpo
ratin
g ne
wly
ele
ctri�
ed a
spec
ts o
f eve
ryda
y lif
e, b
rand
ing
them
, and
exe
rtin
g pr
oprie
tary
aut
horit
y ov
er th
em.'W
e w
ante
d M
TV 3
60 to
be
mor
e th
an c
ross
-pro
mot
iona
l
, exp
lain
s Ju
dy M
cGra
th, t
hen-
pres
iden
t of t
he M
TV G
roup
and
cha
irman
of I
nter
activ
e
M
usic
(now
pre
siden
t of M
TV N
etw
orks
), 'W
e wan
ted
it to
conn
ect t
he M
TV v
iew
ers'.
And
thro
ugh
2005
this
stra
tegy
was
wild
ly su
cces
sful. A
s bro
adban
d m
edia,
por
tabl
e di
gita
l tec
hnol
ogy,
and
onlin
e co
mm
unity
pro
lifer
atio
n ac
cele
rate
d in
the
US
thro
ugho
ut e
arly
200
6, M
TVbe
gan
to p
ush
its m
ulti-
plat
form
pro
gram
min
g in
to h
igh
gear
, with
the
2006
Vid
eo M
usic
Aw
ards
as a
test
cas
e. T
he
The
VMA
s ha
d be
en e
xper
ienc
ing
cons
tant
slip
page
in th
eir r
atin
gs.P
resi
dent
of
of M
TV, C
hrist
ina N
orm
an, e
xplai
ns: O
ur au
dien
ce e
xper
ienc
es e
nter
tain
men
t on
mul
tiple
pla
tform
s so
we
are m
akin
g th
e 200
6 VM
As a m
ultis
cree
n, in
tera
ctive
expe
rienc
e th
at w
ill g
ive
them
mor
e ac
cess
to th
e VM
As o
n m
ore
plat
form
s th
an e
ver b
efor
e, w
ith a
live
alte
rnat
e fe
ed o
f the
big
sho
w a
vaila
ble
on M
TV O
ver d
rive,
giv
ing
fans
a �
rst e
ver l
ive
behi
nd th
e sc
enes
vie
w o
f the
VM
As
Sean
Mor
an, E
VP, M
TV 3
60 B
rand
Sal
es c
omm
ents
: We
are
Fort
unat
e
t
o ha
ve a
line
up o
f spo
nsor
par
tner
s tha
t und
erst
and
mul
tipla
tform
pro
gram
min
g an
d kn
ow h
ow to
reac
h ou
r aud
ienc
e in
new cr
eativ
e way
s on
air, o
nlin
e, on
the g
roun
d an
d on
thei
r mob
ile p
hone
s.... W
e ar
e w
orki
ng c
lose
ly w
ith a
ll of
our
spon
sors
to c
reat
e a
seam
less
ent
erta
inm
ent e
xper
ienc
e th
at w
ill fu
rthe
r sol
idify
our
lead
ersh
ip p
ositi
on in
this
rapi
dly
evol
ving
spa
ce.
This
fran
tic p
ush
into
dig
ital p
latf
orm
s beg
an w
ith V
iaco
m b
eing
out
bid
by R
uper
t Mur
doch
in 20
05 to
pur
chas
e th
e pr
ofou
ndly
pop
ular
(54
mill
ion
regi
ster
ed u
sers
) onl
ine c
omm
unity
'Mys
pace'.
Since
then
, as B
usin
ess W
eek r
elat
es, 'M
cGra
th h
as d
ecla
red
"a d
igita
l Mar
shal
l Pla
n"...
The
troo
ps m
ust n
ow d
eliv
er se
rvic
es a
cros
s new
bro
adba
nd c
hann
els,
over
cel
l pho
nes,
and
via
vide
o ga
mes
'. As
McG
rath
pitc
hed
in Ja
nuar
y 20
06, n
obob
ody
wan
ts to
be
who
they
use
d to
be,
incl
udin
g us
. Med
ia id
entit
like
mar
ket s
hare
, are
up
for g
rabs
... If
we
wer
e la
unch
ing
toda
y, th
e �r
st so
ng I'd
tee u
p w
ould
be t
he [1
980s
ban
d] Plim
soul
s' 'Ev
eryw
here
at O
nce'.
(Low
ry 2
006,
50)
This
is a
notio
n ec
hoed
by
Ange
l Gam
bino
, MTV
Net
wor
ks U
K's V
P of
com
mer
cial
stra
tegy
and
dig
ital m
edia
:'MTV
has
real
ized
that
it n
eeds
to m
ove
beyo
nd T
V to
eng
age
view
ers
via
the
full
rang
e
of e
mer
ging
dig
ital d
evic
es' (
Jone
s 20
06, 2
1). W
hile
it
be th
e cas
e tha
t 'Th
e M
TV b
rand
, con
tent
and
pro
gram
min
g ha
ve a
lway
s bee
n pe
rfect
ly su
ited
to d
igita
l plat
form
s,' as
Gam
bino
rem
arks
, 'net
wor
k cap
acity
and
the
devi
ce ca
pabi
lity
have
n't b
een
ther
e un
til n
ow' (
Jone
s 20
06, 2
1). A
nd, t
houg
h G
ambi
no c
ontin
ues o
n th
at th
is p
roje
ct g
oes
way
beyo
nd u
ser g
ener
ated
con
tent
... it
's ab
out g
ivin
g au
d
our p
rogr
amm
ing.
.. gi
ving
them
the
chan
ce to
with
the k
ind
of id
eas t
hat w
e w
ould
nev
er th
ink
of (J
ones
200
6, 2
1) it
is cl
ear t
hat t
he sp
eci�
c con
tent
of t
heir p
rogra
mm
ing
has t
aken
- in
no sm
all w
ay -
a ba
ckse
at to
the
impe
rial d
ispos
sess
ion
of th
e m
eans
of p
rodu
cing
and
eng
agin
g po
pula
r cul
ture
.Hea
d of
inte
ract
ive
oper
atio
ns a
t MTV
Net
wor
ks U
K &
Irela
nd, M
atth
ew
Our
bus
ines
s isn
't ab
out w
orsh
ippi
ng a
t the
alta
r of T
V an
ymor
e... W
e hav
e to
focu
s on
bein
g w
here
the
audi
ence
nee
ds u
s to
be, w
heth
er th
at's
on a
two-in
ch sc
reen
or a
42-in
ch h
igh-
de�n
ition
one
. Wha
t is i
ncre
asin
gly
impo
rtan
t is c
aptu
ring
the
spat
ial r
elat
ions
impl
icit
in c
onte
mpo
rary
stru
ctur
es o
f fee
ling:
look
ing
in a
t tha
t whi
ch is
so w
idel
y m
eani
ng
and
yet e
nclo
sed
and
elite
. 'Th
ere
are
very
stro
ng em
otio
nal b
ene�
ts fr
om h
avin
g a
rem
ote
cont
rol in
your
han
d,' e
xpla
ins K
erhs
aw, 't
hat y
ou ca
n us
e to
get cl
oser
to th
e pro
gram
you'
re w
atch
ing'.
With
this
know
ledg
e M
TV a
nd o
ther
bra
nds
in th
e M
TV N
etw
orks
hav
e be
gun
to fo
rm s
trat
egic
alli
ance
s an
d pa
rtne
rshi
ps w
ith c
omm
unic
atio
ns
like
AT&
T In
c an
d Ve
rizon
to m
onop
not j
ust t
heir
audi
ence
s' im
agin
atio
ns, b
ut th
e m
eans
- th
e 36
00 g
eogr
aphi
es -
of im
agin
ing.
Cur
rent
ly, M
TV is
able
to re
ach
nearly
750
milli
on ce
llula
r pho
ne u
sers
thro
ugh
its 5
7 w
irele
ss d
eals
wor
ldw
ide.
Som
e su
ch d
eals
, lik
e th
at w
ith A
mp'
d M
obile
, allo
w th
e vi
ewin
g of
pro
gram
from
all
the
MTV
Net
wor
ks' c
hann
els.
Alo
ngth
e sa
lines
, the
MTV
Net
wor
ks ac
quire
d, in
May
of 2
006,
x�r
e, In
c., 't
he fa
stes
t-gro
win
g on
line g
amin
g co
mm
unica
tion
and co
mm
unity
plat
form
in th
e wor
ld' fo
r US$
102
mill
ion
(Via
com
200
6b).
Furt
her,
the
MTV
Net
wor
ks a
nd G
oogl
e In
c. b
egan
a c
olla
bora
tion
in th
e su
mm
er o
f 200
6 in
nova
ting
a vi
deo
dist
ribut
ion
mod
el 't
hat w
ill
serv
e con
sum
ers,
web
pub
lishe
rs an
d ad
verti
sers
'. Jud
y McG
rath
rem
arks
of t
he co
llabo
ratio
n, 'O
ur b
rand
s are
gre
at n
avig
atio
n tool
s for
our
audi
ence
s, an
d th
is de
al w
ith G
oogl
e w
ill e
nabl
e us
to fo
llow
and
lead
them
to n
ew p
lace
s'.In
this
rega
rd, t
he c
apita
l int
ensi
ve tr
ansf
orm
atio
n of
the
terr
of e
very
day
life
- inc
ludi
ng
inclu
ding
the b
ody -
is m
ade
into
not
sim
ply a
n ad
disp
lay b
ut a
mul
ti-di
rect
iona
l fee
dbac
k mec
hani
sm w
hereb
y tar
getin
g an
d tra
nsfo
rmin
g, le
adin
g an
d fo
llow
ing,
pro
duct
ion
and
rece
ptio
n ar
e co
ales
ced
with
in th
e pr
oprie
tary
and
ple
asur
able
forc
e of
alie
natio
n.W
hat t
his
adva
ncin
g
tech
nolo
gica
l str
uggl
e
ove
r main
tain
ing
rent
able
audi
ence
s rep
rese
nts,
how
ever
, is a
lso th
e ev
er-a
dvan
cing
blur
ring
of ad
verti
sing
and co
nsum
er ta
rget
ing
with
the p
ract
ice o
f eve
ry-d
ay li
fe. In
200
6, M
TV fo
rmed
a n
ew fe
edba
ck/ t
arge
ting
proj
ect c
alle
d, 'V
iew
ser L
abs'.
The
labs
, a p
artn
ersh
ip b
etw
een
the
netw
ork,
its a
dver
ti
spo
nsor
s, an
d ot
her m
edia
agen
cies,
are
inte
nded
to p
ione
er m
ore
targ
etin
g in
nova
tions
(Eld
ridge
2006
). As S
ean
Mor
an, M
TV's
Seni
or Vi
ce P
resid
ent o
f Ad
Sale
s, ex
claim
s, Vi
ewse
r Lab
s rep
rese
nts t
he k
ind
of re
volu
tiona
ry c
olla
bora
tion
that
onl
y M
TV c
an b
ring
to th
e ad
vert
isin
g
com
mun
ity...
Tog
e
with
inno
vativ
e cl
ient
s and
age
ncie
s, w
e ar
e goi
ng to
�nd
the b
est w
ay to
evol
ve th
e adve
rtisin
g m
odel
and
enha
nce
the
view
ing
expe
rienc
e fo
r our
aud
ienc
e. T
he L
abs,
how
ever
, are
str
ateg
izin
g w
ell b
eyon
d w
hat w
e m
ay s
impl
y th
ink
of a
s
'enh
ance
d vi
ew
ex
perie
nce'.
Inde
ed, a
ccor
ding
to V
iaco
m, t
he Vi
ewse
r Lab
s will:
reth
ink e
very
min
ute o
f vie
wer
s'. .. E
xper
ienc
es a
cros
s MTV
's m
ultip
le sc
reen
s, fro
m p
ods
to p
rogr
amm
ing
to p
rom
o sp
ots t
o pr
oduc
t int
egra
tion
to c
omm
erci
al
time
and
mor
Th
e pu
rpos
e of
Vie
wse
r Lab
s is t
o cr
eate
an
open
-end
ed d
ialog
ue b
etwee
n th
e net
wor
kand
mul
tiple
spo
nsor
par
tner
s tha
t will
take
the i
ndus
try b
eyon
d the 3
0-se
cond
spot
and
the
bann
er a
d, o
peni
ng u
p ne
w w
indo
ws a
nd o
ppor
tuni
ties
for a
ll pa
rtie
s.Whi
le, M
TV's
View
ser L
abs w
ill b
e w
hat V
iaco
m c
all
'a u
niqu
e co
c
olla
bora
tion',
it si
gni�
es so
met
hing
mor
e ge
nera
l,the
bro
ader
geo
grap
hic c
lass s
trate
gies
enga
ged
betw
een
clien
ts, a
dver
tis
ag
encie
s and
num
erou
s int
erna
l[net
work]
dep
artm
ents
inclu
ding
ad sa
les,i
nteg
rate
d m
arke
ting,
on
–air
prom
os, p
rogr
amm
ing,
con
sum
er m
arke
ting,
rese
arch
and
mor
e.Ca
ble
tele
visi
on
mad
e M
TV
bot
h po
ssib
le a
nd n
eces
sary
. Tho
ugh
it ha
d be
en in
use
del
iver
ing
netw
ork b
road
casts
to re
mot
e par
ts o
f the
US,
via
surp
lus m
ilita
ry co
axia
l cab
le si
nce
the
ear
ly 19
50s,
cabl
e em
erge
d as
a ke
y US g
row
th in
dust
ry in
tern
atio
nally
in th
e m
id-1
970s
and
ear
ly 1
980s
. On
the
�rst
Tue
sday
of M
arch
198
1, a
fter
mu
plan
ni
o
n ho
w to
pen
etra
te th
e ex
pand
ing
basic
cabl
e m
arke
t, th
e War
ner-A
mex
Sat
ellit
e En
terta
inm
ent C
ompa
ny la
unch
ed M
TV, a
24-
hour
'vid
eo m
usic
netw
ork',
that
wou
ld ra
diat
eits
�rs
t pro
gram
min
g
p
rogr
amm
ing
roug
hly �
ve m
onth
s lat
er, o
n 1
Augu
st. T
houg
h w
ithou
t muc
h fa
nfar
e an
d on
dub
ious
�na
ncia
l foo
ting,
the
impo
rtan
ce o
f MT
beca
appa
rent
early
on.
But
this
impo
rtanc
e w
as n
o ac
cide
nt. M
TV's
pop
cultu
ral p
row
ess w
as th
e pro
duct o
f int
ense
rese
arch
and
the
culm
inat
ion
of n
ew te
chni
ques
and
tech
nolo
gies
. Whi
le b
road
cast
tele
visi
on h
ad d
evel
oped
aro
und
a pa
radi
gm o
f rep
lica
succ
show
form
ulas
and
striv
ing
for b
road
pop
ular
ity, t
he p
rolif
erat
ion
of ca
ble
infra
stru
ctur
e dev
elop
ed co
ncom
itant
ly w
ith n
ew p
rogr
am
min
g st
rate
gies
of t
arge
ting
key
(thos
e w
ith h
igh
spen
ding
pow
er) a
udie
nces
, kno
wn
as 'q
ualit
y de
mog
raph
ics'.
Thu
s,
aud
rese
arch
was
no
long
er (o
nly)
a w
ay o
f mea
surin
g po
pula
rity a
fter t
he fa
ct, b
ut ra
ther
a w
ay o
f pro
ducin
g pop
ular
ity th
roug
h th
e con
struc
tion
of a
targ
et a
udie
nce“
. Whe
n Bo
b Pi
ttm
an b
egan
con
duct
ing
rese
arch
for t
he v
iabi
lity
of a
stat
ion
that
com
bine
his g
ener
atio
n's t
wo fa
vorit
e pa
stim
es -
wat
chin
g TV
and
liste
ning
to th
e ra
dio
- it w
as al
read
y in
the c
onte
xt o
f the
exist
ing
know
ledge
that
'you
ng
, u
rban
adu
lts (e
spec
ially
fem
ales
) age
d 18
-49
wer
e th
e pr
ime
cons
umer
s of
the
type
s of g
oods
adv
ertis
ed
repr
esen
tativ
es o
f the
targ
et d
emog
raph
ic. Th
eir s
urve
ys p
rovid
ed ev
iden
ce th
at 85
per
c
ent o
f tho
se
p
olle
d ex
pres
sed
exci
tem
ent o
ver '
a ca
ble
chan
nel t
hat m
erge
d te
levi
sion
and
rock
and
roll',
whi
ch w
as
whi
ch w
as u
sed
to e
licit
the
coop
erat
ion
of th
e re
cord
com
pani
es, a
dver
tiser
s and ca
b
le o
pera
tors
nee
d
ed
to la
unch
the
proj
ect.
But i
t was
, per
haps
eve
n m
ore
impo
rtan
tly, P
ittm
an's
part
icip
ant-
obse
rv
pr
actic
es, r
elat
ing
the
qual
itativ
e ex
perie
nce
of h
is ow
n 'p
sych
ogra
phic'
grou
p, h
is
s
tatu
s as a
cultu
ral d
oubl
e
age
nt, m
etab
oliz
ing
the
deta
ils o
f his
live
d ex
perie
nces
that
wer
e ce
ntra
l to
its su
cces
s.In
Oct
of 1
982,
A.C
. Nie
lsen
rele
ased
a
su
rvey
of M
TV v
iew
ers,
indi
catin
g 85
per
cent
of t
he 2
,000
resp
onde
nts i
n th
e in
tend
ed
g
roup
wat
ched
MTV
, and
thos
e th
at d
id v
iew
ed it
an
aver
age
of 4
.6 h
ours
a w
eek.
F
urth
erm
ore,
MTV
's su
cces
s as
a p
latf
orm
to s
ell w
as im
med
iate
ly a
ppar
ent a
s
as
'63
perc
ent o
f the
surv
ey re
spon
dent
s sa
id th
ey p
urch
ased
an
art
ist's
albu
m a
fter v
iew
ing
a cl
ip fe
atur
ingt
he a
rtis
t's m
usic
Thi
s suc
cess
invo
lved
bot
h ex
pand
ing
venu
es fo
r eng
t
he 1
980s
' pop
cul
ture
exp
losi
on a
nd th
e ex
cite
m
it e
ntai
led,
and
inte
nsify
ing
a st
rate
gic,
if u
n
co
nver
genc
e of
the
mea
ns o
f cul
tura
l ex
A
s the
mus
ic in
dust
ry b
ecam
e in
crea
inse
para
ble
from
mus
ic v
ideo
s an
M
TV's
livin
g ro
om m
arke
ting
p
latfo
rm, s
o to
o di
d H
olly
w
In th
e ea
rly 1
980s
, mov
ie
so
undt
rack
s be
cam
e cr
com
pone
nts
of �
lm
m
arke
ting,
e ne
x m
ark
MTV
Thus, Rolling Stone Magazine described Pittm
an's penchant for market research and a willingness to discard
traditional 'wisdom
' in favor of pursuing the 'real meaning' of the data compiled by phone calls, sales-trend analy
and surveys of the Mood of the N
ation. MTV began as an elaborate simultaneous targeting and production of both an a
audience and forms of already-popular m
edia culture. WASEC's audience research team, led by Marshall Cohen, discovered th
that no channel was speci�cally targeting Am
erica's
most a�
uent demographic group, post-w
ar 'baby-boomers' aged 12-34
and began testing the MTV concept at length w
ith
revolving around the marriage of popular music artists/ teen idols with the visual drama of �lm clips and mini-movie trailers. As Gordon W
eaver of P
aram
ount
Pic
ture
s ex
plai
ns:T
hat's
bec
ause
the
orig
inal
intent of these music videos is to promote the movie, although there's spillover bene�t to the record when the m
ovie is play
ed...
[Par
amou
nt P
ictu
res
dist
ribut
es th
e cl
ips
to M
TVan
and other television outlets, as well as locally to clubs.] We do this through our o�ces in New York and our 43 advertising agencies a
round th
e co
untr
y...I
t's a
god
send
. The
dem
ogra
phic
s ar
e
are so perfect with music video. Paramount's saucy pop classic, Flashdance (1983), broke �rst ground in this sort of p
roduction and dist
ributio
n st
rate
gy. A
fter
Par
amou
nt s
pent
clo
se to
US
$3
million promoting Flashdance, Weaver explained: We incorporated the music into all of our radio and TV spots. If y
ou have a single... [Ire
ne Cara's 'W
hat a
Feel
ing'
] pla
ying
on
the
radi
o, th
e sp
ots
are
like
cross-pollination. This process was perhaps summed up best by Gary LeMel, Columbia Pictures' Colfax division executive, Holly
wood sees a
way
to g
et a
lot o
f [fr
ee] a
dver
tisin
g an
d m
arke
ting
for its target audience. The target audience for MTV is the same target for pictures. You need the 12 to 25 demographic. But, MTV's in
novations i
n video
mus
ic a
lso re
de�n
ed th
e st
ruct
ure
of p
op e
xpre
ss
forms. In the early 1980s, Bob Pittman, co-founder of MTV, comments on the stylistic innovations developed by MTV: What w
e've introduced w
ith M
TV is a
non-
narr
ativ
e fo
rm. A
s op
pose
d to
con
vent
iona
l
television, where you rely on plot and continuity, we rely on mood and emotion. We make you feel a certain way as opposed to
you w
alkin
g aw
ay w
ith a
ny p
artic
ular
kno
wle
dge.
He
cont
with a M
cCluhanian sense of opportunism, You're dealing with a culture of TV babies.., what kids can't do today is follow things too lo
ng. They get bore
d and
distracted, their minds wander. If information is presented to them in tight fragments that don't necessarily follow each other, kids can compre
hend that
. Par
t of M
TVs
innovative dominance has been not simply concocting new forms of surveillance for understanding how to better p
redict it
s targ
et d
emog
raph
ic'sp
refe
renc
es a
nd h
abits
, but
furt
her
audiences through its quick pace and �ashy graphics made it a valuable asset for advertising revenue and its style was becoming popular and highly in�uential in other media. In 1996 the MTV Networks launched MTV-2, w
hich would allow M
TV to
focu
s mor
e on
airi
ng tr
aditi
onal
pro
gram
min
g,
rather than music videos. Despite slouching ratings in the early 1990s, MTV has alw
ays remained authoritative in pop culture production, in no small part because of its relentless search for emergent cultural forms fo
r incorporatio
n in
to its
pro
ductio
ns. T
his f
ee
This feedback process is called 'cool hunting', where researchers visit teens' homes, hangout in their bedrooms and learn what moves them emotionally, aesthetically. Some such researchers, like at Look-Look, contra
ct out th
eir services. I
f a cl
ient w
ants
to '
'create a whole new brand or... product with a company that targets a speci�c audience,' explain D. Gordon and S. Lee, Look- Look co-founders, they take out information information to assist in inspiring project desig
ners, in helping th
em m
arke
t the
new
pro
duct
,
, even in naming the product, and then eventually testing. They use our database to recruit kids to test the products out, stu� like that. But such apparatuses of industrial cultural production, social research, are also furth
er enclosed as
This ability to create its own proprietary research, employed to realize stronger or more authoritative m
onopoly rent, has been critical to maintaining MTV's cultural authority. Todd Cunningham, MTV's Senior VP of Brand Stra
tegy and
Plann ing, explains how the corporation uses such 'instruments' to sim
ultaneously represent and direct popular culture: The research e�orts at MTV are certainly legendary. Ever since the very beginning, there's been a kind of fe
verish ad
dictio
n
and understanding young people.... In virtually every meeting that we have, research kicks th
e meetin
g o�. T
here
's a
signa
l rig
ht th
ere
to th
e or
g
organization that,' Hey, you've got to pay attention to what the view
ers are about and what kinds of things are happening with them,' whether it be shifts in the ratings, shifts in, kind of viewership behavior a
nd pat
tern
s, to
the
mor
e qu
alita
tive
kind
of t
o
touchy-feely things of attitudinal changes and things like that. As Cunningham explains, MTV uses fo
rm
s of m
ore t
raditi
onal
rese
arch
, suc
h as
ratin
gs, a
n
doing more than 200
focus groups per year. However, for MTV's research e�orts, it is important not to do them in traditio
nal places and geo
grap
hies
, fre
quen
tly d
oing
focu
s gro
ups
on
basketball courts, for instance, or store parking lots. Often though, M
TV will send its quasi-social scientists to people's homes
'where [they] get the great chance to actually go out and ri�e through kids' closets and go through
'their music collections'. Once a year, MTV res earchers perform
what they call, 'ethnography'. Cunningham
details: An ethnography study.., .is a study that basically goes out and tries to understand the di�erences between audiences - to try uncover
uncover nuances that make them separate from
other ones.... We go through their music collections. We go to nightclubs
We shut the door in their bedrooms and talk to
them about iss
ues t
hat th
ey fe
el a
re re
ally
impo
rtan
t to
th
We talk with them about what it's like to date today; w
hat it's lik
e dea
ling
with th
eir p
aren
ts; w
hat t
hing
s st
ress
them out the most; what things are really on the hearts and minds of th
em and thei
r pee
rs. W
e ha
ve th
em sh
ow u
s th
eir f
avor
ite
but also fantastic and targeted spectacles s
o that
'non
e m
ay e
scap
e'.An
d w
hile
this
stra
tegy
involves targeting partic
ular aggregate gro
ups, au
dien
ces,
ofte
n it
enta
ils u
sing
spec
i�c
mem
of those groups as intermediaries, k
ey types of c
onsum
ers -
recr
uite
d w
ittin
gly
or u
nwitt
ingl
y as
double agents for capital. As Michael J. Wolf, M
TV's cu
rrent
pre
siden
t and
chi
ef o
pera
ting
o�ce
r' re
ce
commented: Advertisers would rather connect with th
at one a
lpha
consu
mer
[you
ng tr
ends
ette
r] v
s. th
ree
be
consumers ... We understand that audience, and we can help th
em d
o th
at.Tr
ends
ettin
g, 'A
lpha
', con
sum
ers t
hem
me favorites Real World and Total Request Live. O
sbou
rnes
, in fa
ct, i
s ach
ievi
ng b
road
cast
-leve
l rat
e
at $135,000t o $150,000 for a 30-seconds pot.1
9 In
1999
, MTV
was
rank
ed n
umbe
r six
am
ong
basi
c
is an internatio
nal class st
rate
gy an
d impe
rialis
tic p
roje
ct in
the
plai
nest
term
This is a project within w
hich th
e stru
ctur
e an
d co
ntro
l of s
ocia
l env
ironm
ents
is
central. 360 0 of M
TV As MTV's
2001/
2002
Med
ia K
it su
gges
ts c
aval
ierly
adv
ertis
ing
is an image business,
my friend - y
ou've g
ot to
be
seen
in a
ll th
e rig
ht c
ircle
s' Th
e ne
two
diversi�cation into three prongs M
TV (cab
le), M
TV.com
(int
erne
t) a
nd M
TV2
is c
onsc
ious
ly
designed to increase th
e impact of a
dvertisin
g. A
s the
Med
ia K
it ex
plai
ns T
he n
ext g
ener
atio
n
media experience? You're lo
okin' at it. E
ach M
TV p
latfo
rm h
as d
istin
ct st
reng
ths.
MTV
360
0 ex
pl
the best of each, then integrates them to
max
imize
the
impa
ct o
f any
pro
gram
min
g ev
ent.
On
event + three screens = lim
itless possibilit
ies. W
here
ver t
hey
go, t
here
you
[adv
ertis
ers]
are
'. The
idea of a 3600 strategy orig
inates in milit
ary In
form
atio
n Ope
ratio
ns, r
efer
ring
to c
ompa
ss-h
eadi
or 'azimuths' related to mapping, navigatio
n and
targ
etin
g. It
als
o re
fers
to 'f
ull-s
pect
rum
’ inte
lli
intelligence and surveilla
nce; knowing all of t
he con
ditions
of a
giv
en b
attle
or '
oper
atio
n'. 3
600
also often refers to a full-im
mersion virtual e
nviron
men
t 360
0 ba
ttle
sim
ulat
ions
are
cur
rent
ly th
e
rather th
an only immediat
e sup
erio
rs. In
man
y w
ays,
all
such
con
nota
tions
of
evaluation m
echa
nism
s Via
com
Bra
nd S
olut
ions
form
ed in
the
clothing out�ts, what they wear to parties, some things from
their photo albums and things th
which really mean something to them. And then w
e're allowed to come back and translate that into
programming opportunities or just insi ghts in general about what the audience actually does. It is through the
these methods of surveillance that MTV is able to adm
inistrate through simultaneously leading and following. It
concomitantly 'democratizes' its production process, while im
plicitly negotiating the submission of audiences to their au
authority - conforming the structure s of feeling of an expanding population to new sets of rents, propertied authority,
are increasingly interpolated into the means of capital circulation. Such techniques have
have been deeply successful for the network and have set standards for media brand strateg
In a 2002 speech, Sumner Redstone elaborates, MTV is hotter than ever as the #1 network wit
the 12- 24 set for 10 straight years, fueled by the breakaway hit 'The Osbournes,' as well as long-ti
cable channels, worth roughly US$400 million in sales.20 The MTV Networks total annual (20
sales are estimated at US$1.3 bi llion, employing 1100 people. And, now more than ever MTV an
its international network brands (see Plate 4) serve a critical role in the international division of labor
as a hub for a variety of other corporate interests. For instance, MTV's international reach now allows
Hollywood studios and record labels to coordinate product releases simultaneously around the world.
cutting edge of training ground support for air strikes (and
the dream of the electronic gaming industry). The term
rece
also refers to government and corporate personnel evaluatio
aggregated 'full-spectrum' surveys of all co-w
ork
where employees
of the term apply to
MTV. 3600 alludes as mu
to 'full spectrum' targeting and
emersion as it does feedback and
not unusual for them to be talking on the phone while they’re wat ching TV and using their com puter to download music or IM their friends. M TV 3600 respo
are evaluated through
the same year as the 3600 initiative, 2001, is an institutional mechanism (in
Euro
pe and th
e US
) for
util
izin
g th
eir n
ew m
ulti-
plat
form
targeting strategies to 'ensure clients achieve strong return[s] on investment thro
ugh
c
omm
unicatio
n'. A
n im
porta
nt p
art o
f the
ir su
cces
s, th
ey e
x
i
n relat
ion to
TV a
nd li
fe in
gen
eral
' But
, MTV
's 36
00 s
trat
egy
m
ely th
e Inte
rnet
, cyb
er-c
omm
uniti
es a
nd o
ther
cyb
er-p
ract
ice
sure p
ract
ices i
ncre
ase
the
amou
nt o
f int
erco
nnec
ted
task
s pos
, w
e've f
ound th
at th
is au
dien
ce m
ulti-
task
s lik
e no
oth
er. I
t’s
to
our v
iew
ers
by g
ivin
g th
em th
e ch
oice
s th
e
is their ability to 'understand and interpret the behavior of our view
also responds to competitive developments in everyday life, na
Like in the workplace, the added m
achinery attached to lei
at one time; they increase the relative productivity of leis
As Van To�er, MTV/M
TV2/MTV Film s President explains
The acceleration and compression of social activ ity (mea
sure
d in
tim
e) in
the
so-c
alle
d 'N
etw
ork
Society' is both a problem and op
port
unity
for t
elev
isio
n st
atio
ns li
ke M
TV.
While there more possible distractio n s from
the
adve
rtis
ing
mes
sage
s re
nted
on
that
aggregated social time, the r e are
also
rela
tivel
y m
ore
spac
es to
eng
age
soc
attention by advertise rs, the
re a
re m
ore
plat
form
s fo
r ind
ustr
ial c
ultu
production. Interactive pr o gram
min
g ev
ents
cap
italiz
e on
this
situ
atio
n.
GM of MTV, David C
ohn, e
xpla
ins
'It's
all a
bout
cas
ting
a w
ider
Control Freak has been a gratif
ying
succ
ess,
in te
rms o
f int
erac
tive
TV.
show gets an average of 25 0,000
Web
site
vis
itors
an
hour
. MTV
360
is
the corporation's �rst for ay into
inte
ract
ive
prog
ram
min
g In
199
5,
produced a show call e d Yack L
ive,
whi
ch in
clud
ed sc
rolli
ng li
ve
from audience em ails a
s vid
eos
play
ed. I
n 19
97, t
he n
etw
'reinvented' itself after s
ever
al y
ears
of d
eclin
ing
ratin
with the unveil i ng of a
hug
e st
udio
in th
e m
iddl
e
New York Cit ys rece
ntly
reno
vate
d Ti
mes
Squ
a
Th
e st
udio
was
des
igne
d an
d st
r
for i
nter
activ
ity o
f all
sort
s hug
e w
win
dows t
hat a
llow
ed p
edes
tria
ns
to lo
ok in
and
per
haps
get
cau
ght
on ca
mer
a, �
brot
ic in
frast
ruct
ure
allowing �exible interfacing w
ith audiences across a variety of comm
unications platforms, and �exible outdoor and indoor cam
era architecture allowing out-of-the-studio �lm
ing. These innovations on the landscape allowed for new
programm
ing opportunities, like the 1999 interactive game show
, Web Riot. Likew
ise, this landscape also allows for M
TV's �agship video countdown show
, Total Request Live, versions of which exist(in sim
ilar studio landscapes) from W
arsaw to M
umbai. In July 2004, M
TV Europe built a similar glassy studio on London's Leicester Square as the stage for its 'European' version of TRL. U
tilizing the Web (and its optical infrastructure) and integrating new
forms of com
munications
Brand Sales comm
ents: We are fortunate to have a line up of sponsor partners that understand m
ultiplatform program
ming and know
how to reach our audience in new
creative ways on air, online, on the ground and on their m
obile phones.... We are w
orking closely with all of our sponsors to create a seam
less entertainment experience that w
ill further solidify our leadership position in this rapidly evolving space. This frantic push into digital platforms began w
ith Viacom being outbid by Rupert M
urdoch in 2005 to purchase the profoundly popular (54 million registered users) online com
munity 'M
yspace'. Since then, as Business Week relates, 'M
cGrath has declared "a digital Marshall Plan"... The troops
must now
deliver services across new broadband channels, over cell phones, and via video gam
es'. As McG
rath pitched in January 2006, nobody wants to be w
ho they used to be, including us. Media identities, like m
arket share, are up for grabs... If we w
ere launching today, the �rst song I'd tee up would be the [1980s band] Plim
souls' 'Everywhere at O
nce'. (Lowry 2006, 50) This is a notion echoed by Angel Gam
bino, MTV N
etworks U
K's VP of comm
ercial strategy and digital media: 'M
TV has realized that it needs to move beyond TV to engage view
ers via the full range of emerging digital devices' (Jones 2006, 21). W
hile it may be the case that 'The M
TV brand, content and programm
ing have always been
perfectly suited to digital platforms,' as Gam
bino remarks, 'netw
ork capacity and the device capability haven't been there until now' (Jones 2006, 21). And, though G
ambino continues on that this project goes w
ay beyond user generated content... it's about giving audiences complete control of... our program
ming... giving them
the chance to come up w
ith the kind of ideas that we w
ould never think of (Jones 2006, 21) it is clear that the speci�c content of their programm
ing has taken - in no small w
ay - a backseat to the imperial dispossession of the m
eans of producing and engaging popular culture. Head of interactive operations at M
TV Netw
orks UK & Ireland, Matthew
Kershaw, explains: O
ur business
isn't about worshipping at the altar of TV anym
ore... We have to focus on being w
here the audience needs us to be, whether that's on a tw
o-inch screen or a 42-inch high-de�nition one. What is increasingly im
portant is capturing the spatial relations implicit in contem
porary structures of feeling: looking in at that which is so w
idely meaningful and yet enclosed and elite. 'There are very strong em
otional bene�ts from having a rem
ote control in your hand,' explains Kerhsaw, 'that you can use to get closer to the program
you're watching'. W
ith this knowledge M
TV and other brands in the MTV N
etworks have begun to form
strategic alliances and partnerships with com
munications providers like AT&
T Inc and
and Verizon to monopolize not just their audiences' im
aginations, but the means - the 3600 geographies - of im
agining. Currently, MTV is able to reach nearly 750 m
illion cellular phone users through its 57 wireless deals w
orldwide. Som
e such deals, like that with A
mp'd M
obile, allow the view
ing of program from
all the MTV N
etworks' channels (Jones 2006; Low
ry 2006). Along the same lines, the M
TV Networks acquired, in M
ay of 2006, x�re, Inc., 'the fastest-growing online gam
ing comm
unication and comm
unity platform in the w
orld' for US$102 m
illion (Viacom 2006b). Further, the M
TV Netw
orks and Google Inc. began a collaboration in the sum
mer of 2006 innovating a video distribution m
odel 'that will
situation. The GM of M
TV, David Cohn, explains 'It's all about casting a w
ider net. Control Freak has been a gratifying success, in terms of interactive TV. The show
gets an average of 250,000 Web site visitors an hour. M
TV 360 is not the corporation's �rst foray into 'interactive' programm
ing. In 1995, MTV (U
S) produced a show called Yack Live, w
hich included scrolling live comm
ents from audience em
ails as videos played. In 1997, the (US) netw
ork 'reinvented' itself after several years of declining ratings with the unveiling of a huge studio in the m
iddle of New
York City's recently renovated Times Square. The studio w
as designed and structured for interactivity of all sorts: huge window
s that allowed pedestrians to look in and
�exible outdoor and indoor camera architecture allow
ing out-of-the-studio �lming. These innovations on the landscape allow
ed for new program
ming opportunities, like the 1999 interactive gam
e show, W
eb Riot. Likewise, this landscape also allow
s for MTV's �agship video countdow
n show, Total Request Live, versions of w
hich exist (in similar studio landscapes) from
Warsaw
to Mum
bai. In July 2004, MTV Europe built a sim
ilar glassy studio on London's Leicester Square as the stage for its 'European' version of TRL. Utilizing the W
eb (and its optical infrastructure) and integrating new form
s of comm
unications into their monopoly pow
er became the new
wrinkle in M
TV's targeting strategies. These infrastructures a lso enable a
, into their monopoly pow
er became the new
wrinkle in M
TV's targeting strategies. These infrastructures also enable a feedback loop for what M
TV/MTV2/ M
TVFilms president at the tim
e Van To�er describes as the netw
ork's target audience's insatiable hunger for 'access and behind-the-scenes information'. Experiencing the contra-dictions of their w
idespread alienation from popular cultural production, '[audiences] w
ant a much m
ore individualized experience and more interaction w
ith each other and with the artists', explains M
TV International Group chairm
an Nicholas Butterw
orth in 2001. He continues that the corporation plans to m
ake 'convergence the next great reinvention of MTV. W
ith MTV 360,
all three platforms are di�erent but connected', em
ploying 'a deeper integration of comm
unities, with the ability for users to see each other and talk to each other w
herever they are'. MTV 360 encapsulates a relative expansion w
ithin the industrial production of culture, incorporating newly electri�ed aspects of everyday life, branding them
, and exerting proprietary authority over them. 'W
e wanted M
TV 360 to be more than cross-prom
otional marketing', explains Judy M
cGrath, then-president of the M
TV Group and chairm
an of Interactive Music(now
president of MTV N
etworks), 'W
e wanted it to connect the M
TV viewers'. And through 2005 this strategy w
as wildly successful. As broadband m
edia, portable
digital technology, and online comm
unity proliferation accelerated in the US throughout early 2006, M
TV began to push its multi-platform
programm
ing into high gear, with the 2006 Video M
usic Awards as a test case. The VM
As had been experiencing constant slippage in their ratings. President of M
TV, Christina Norm
an, explains: Our audience experiences entertainm
ent on multiple platform
s so we are m
aking the 2006 VMAs a m
ultiscreen, interactive experience that will give them
more access to the VM
As on m
ore platforms than ever before, w
ith a live alternate feed of the big show available on M
TV Over drive, giving fans a �rst ever live behind the scenes view
of the VMAs. Sean M
oran, EVP, MTV 360
serve consumers, w
eb publishers and advertisers'. Judy McG
rath remarks of the collaboration, 'O
ur brands are great navigation tools for our audiences, and this deal with G
oogle will enable us to follow
and lead them to new
places'. In this regard, the capital intensive transformation of the terrain of everyday life - including the body - is m
ade into not simply an ad display but a m
ulti-directional feedback mechanism
whereby targeting and transform
ing, leading and following, production and reception are coalesced w
ithin the proprietary and pleasurable force of alienation. What this advancing technological struggle over m
aintaining rentable audiences represents, however, is also the ever-advancing blur
of advertising and consumer targeting w
ith the practice of every-day life. In 2006, MTV form
ed a new feedback/ targeting project called, 'View
ser Labs'. The labs, a partnership between the netw
ork, its advertising sponsors, and other media agencies, are intended to pioneer m
ore targeting innovations (Eldridge 2006). As Sean Moran, M
TV's Senior Vice President of Ad Sales, exclaims, View
ser Labs represents the kind of revolutionary collaboration that only MTV can bring to the advertising com
munity... Together w
ith innovative clients and agencies, we are going to �nd the best w
ay to evolve the advertising model and enhance the view
ing experience for our audience. The Labs, however, are strategizing
well beyond w
hat we m
ay simply think of as an 'enhanced view
ing experience'. Indeed, according to Viacom, the View
ser Labs will: rethink every m
inute of viewers'. .. Experiences across M
TV's multiple screens, from
pods to programm
ing to promo spots to product integration to com
mercial tim
e and more. The purpose of View
ser Labs is to create an open-ended dialogue between the netw
ork and multiple sponsor partners that w
ill take the industry beyond the 30-second spot and the banner ad, opening up new w
indows and opportunities for all parties. (Viacom
2006d) While, M
TV's Viewser Labs w
ill be what Viacom
calls 'a unique collaboration', it signi�es something m
ore general, the broader geographic c lass
strategies engaged between clients, advertising agencies and num
erous internal[network] departm
ents including ad sales, integrated marketing, on –air prom
os, programm
ing, consumer m
arketing, research and more.Cable television m
ade MTV both possible and necessary. Though it had been in use - delivering netw
ork broadcasts to remote parts of the U
S, via surplus military coaxial cable - since the early 1950s, cable em
erged as a key US grow
th industry internationally in the mid-1970s and early 1980s. O
n the �rst Tuesday of March 1981, after m
uch planning on how to penetrate the expanding basic cable m
arket, the Warner-Am
ex Satellite Entertainment Com
pany launched MTV, a 24-hour 'video
music netw
ork', that would radiate its �rst program
ming roughly �ve m
onths later, on 1 August. Though without m
uch fanfare and on dubious �nancial footing, the importance of M
TV became apparent early on. But this im
portance was no accident. M
TV's pop cultural prowess w
as the product of intense research and the culmination of new
techniques and technologies. While broadcast television had developed around a paradigm
of replicating successful show form
ulas and striving for broad popularity, the proliferation of cable infrastructure developed concomitantly w
ith new program
ming strategies of targeting key (those w
ith high spending power) audiences, know
n as 'quality demographics'
Thus, audience research was no longer (only) a w
ay of measuring popularity after the fact, but rather a w
ay of producing popularity through the construction of a target audience“. When Bob Pittm
an began conducting research for the viability of a station that combined his generation's tw
o favorite pastimes - w
atching TV and listening to the radio - it was already in the context of the existing know
ledge that 'young, urban adults (especially females) aged 18-49 w
ere the prime consum
ers of the types of goods advertised on TV'. Thus, Rolling Stone Magazine described Pittm
an's penchant for market research and a w
illingness to discard traditional 'wisdom
' in favor of pursuing the 'real meaning' of the data
compiled by phone calls, sales-trend analyses and surveys of the M
ood of the Nation. M
TV began as an elaborate simultaneous targeting and production of both an audience and form
s of already-popular media culture. W
ASEC's audience research team
, led by Marshall Cohen, discovered that no channel w
as speci�cally targeting America's m
ost a�uent dem
ographic group, post-war 'baby-boom
ers' aged 12-34 and began testing the MTV concept at length w
ith representatives of the target demographic. Their surveys provided evidence that 85 per cent of those polled expressed excitem
ent over 'a cable channel that merged television and rock and roll', w
hich was used to elicit the cooperation of the record
companies, advertisers and cable operators needed to launch the project. But it w
as, perhaps even more im
portantly, Pittman's participant-observation practices, relating the qualitative experience of his ow
n 'psychographic' group, his status as a cultural double agent, metabolizing the details of his lived experiences that w
ere central to its success. In October of 1982, A.C. N
ielsen released a survey of MTV view
ers, indicating 85 percent of the 2,000 respondents in the intended demographic group w
atched MTV, and those that did view
ed it an average of 4.6 hours a week. Furtherm
ore, MTV's success as a platform
to sell was im
mediately apparent as '63 percent of the survey respondents said they purchased N
o se
trend analyses and surveys of the Mood of the N
ation. MTV began as an elaborate sim
ultaneous targeting and production of both an audience and forms of already-popular m
edia culture. WA
SEC's audience research team, led by M
arshall Cohen, discovered that no channel was speci�cally targeting A
merica's m
ost a�uent dem
ographic group, post-war 'baby-boom
ers' aged 12-34 and began testing the MTV concept at length w
ith representatives of the target demographic. Their surveys provided evidence that 85 per cent of those polled expressed excitem
ent over 'a cable channe l that merged television and rock and roll', w
hich was used to elicit the cooperation of the record com
panies, advertisers and cable operators
of his own 'psychographic' group, his status as a cultural double agent, m
etabolizing the details of his lived experiences that were central to its success. In O
ctober of 1982, A.C. N
ielsen released a survey of MTV view
ers, indicating 85 percent of the 2,000 respondents in the intended demographic group w
atched MTV, and those that did view
ed it an average of 4.6 hours a week. Furtherm
ore, MTV's success as a platform
to sell was im
mediately apparent as '63 percent of the survey respondents said they purchased an artist's album
after viewing a clip featuring the artist's m
usic'. This success involved both expanding venues for engaging the 1980s' pop culture explosion and the excitement it entailed, and instra tegic, if
marketing platform
, so too did Hollywood. In the early 1980s, m
ovie soundtracks became critical com
ponents of �lm m
arketing, revolving around the marriage of popular m
usic artists/ teen idols with the visual dram
a of �lm clips and m
ini-movie trailers. A
s Gordon W
eaver of Paramount Pictures explains: That's because the original intent of these m
usic videos is to promote the m
ovie, although there's spillover bene�t to the record when the m
ovie is played... [Paramount Pictures distributes the clips to M
TV and other television outlets, as well as locally to clubs.] W
e do this through our o�ces in N
ew York and our 43 advertising agencies around the country...It's a godsend. The dem
ographics are so perfect wit h m
usic video.
million prom
oting Flashdance, Weaver explained: W
e incorporated the music into all of our radio and TV spots. If you have a single... [Irene Cara's 'W
hat a Feeling'] playing on the radio, the spots are like cross-pollination. This process was perhaps sum
med up best by G
ary LeMel, Colum
bia Pictures' Colfax division executive, Hollyw
ood sees a way to get a lot of [free] advertising and m
arketing for its target audience. The target audience for MTV is the sam
e target for pictures. You need the 12 to 25 demographic. But, M
TV's innovations in video music also rede�ned the structure of pop expressive form
s. In the early 1980s, Bob Pittman, co-founder of M
TV, comm
ents on the stylistic innovations developed by MTV: W
hat we've
you feel a certain way as opposed to you w
alking away w
ith any particular knowledge. H
e continues with a M
cCluhanian sense of opportunism, You're dealing w
ith a culture of TV babies.., what kids can't do today is follow
things too long. They get bored and distracted, their minds w
ander. If information is presented to them
in tight fragments that don't necessarily follow
each other, kids can comprehend that. Part of M
TV's innovative dominance has been not sim
ply concocting new form
s of surveillance for understanding how to better predict its target dem
ographic's preferences and habits, but further to distil such emotions, or in Raym
ond William
s' terms, structures of feeling into persuasive m
oods or emotive currency
half interest in Showtim
e. Viacom's acquisition of the M
TV Netw
orks represented a synergy within a synergy, as the um
brella company already included several channels: M
TV, Nickelodeon and VH
-1. How
ever, MTV itself w
as the most im
portant property in the MTV N
etworks. The netw
ork's ability to captivate young audiences through its quick pace and �ashy graphics made it a valuable asset for advertising revenue and its style w
as becoming popular and highly in�uential in other m
edia. In 1996 the MTV N
etworks launched M
TV-2, which w
ould allow M
TV to focus more on airing traditional program
ming, rather than m
usic videos. Despite slouching ratings in the early 1990s, M
TV has always rem
ained author itative in pop
called 'cool hunting', where researchers visit teens' hom
es, hangout in their bedrooms and learn w
hat moves them
emotionally, aesthetically. Som
e such researchers, like at Look-Look, contract out their services. If a client wants to 'create a w
hole new brand or... product w
ith a company that targets a speci�c audience,' explain D
. Gordon and S. Lee, Look- Look co-founders, they take out inform
ation to assist in inspiring project designers, in helping them m
arket the new product, even in nam
ing the product, and then eventually testing. They use our database to recruit kids to test the products out, stu� like that. But such apparatuses of industrial cultural production, social research, are also further enclosed as co mpetitive
MTV's cultural authority. Todd Cunningham
, MTV's Senior VP of Brand Strategy and Planning, explains how
the corporation uses such 'instruments' to sim
ultaneously represent and direct popular culture: The research e�orts at MTV are certainly legendary. Ever since the very beginning, there's been a kind of feverish addiction to research and understanding young people.... In virtually every m
eeting that we have, research kicks the m
eeting o�. There's a signal right there to the organization that,' Hey, you've got to pay attention to w
hat the viewers are about and w
hat kinds of things are happening with them
,' whether it be shifts in the ratings, shifts in, kind of view
ership behavior and patterns, to the more qualitative kind of
doing more than 200 focus groups per year. How
ever, for MTV's research e�orts, it is im
portant not to do them in traditional places and geographies, frequently doing focus groups on basketball courts, for instance, or store parking lots. O
ften though, MTV w
ill send its quasi-social scientists to people's homes 'w
here [they] get the great chance to actually go out and ri�e through kids' closets and go through their music collections'. O
nce a year, MTV researchers perform
what they call, 'ethnography'. Cunningham
details: An ethnography study.., .is a study that basically goes out and tries to understand the di�erences betw
een audiences - to try to uncover nuances that make them
separate from other ones... . W
e go through
with them
about what it's like to date today; w
hat it's like dealing with their parents; w
hat things stress them out the m
ost; what things are really on the hearts and m
inds of them and their peers. W
e have them show
us their favorite clothing out�ts, what they w
ear to parties, some things from
their photo albums and things that w
hich really mean som
ething to them. And then w
e're allowed to com
e back and translate that into programm
ing opportunities or just insights in general about what the audience actually does. It is through these m
ethods of surveillance that MTV is able to adm
inistrate through simultaneously leading and follow
ing. It concomitantly 'dem
ocratizes' its production process, while im
plicitly negotiating
fantastic and targeted spectacles so that 'none may escape'. And w
hile this strategy involves targeting particular aggregate groups, audiences, often it entails using speci�c mem
bers of those groups as intermediaries, key types of consum
ers - recruited wittingly or unw
ittingly as double agents for capital. As M
ichael J. Wolf, M
TV's current president and chief operating o�cer' recently com
mented: Advertisers w
ould rather connect with that one alpha consum
er [young trendsetter] vs. three beta consumers ... W
e understand that audience, and we can help them
do that. Trendsetting, 'Alpha', consum
ers themselves are increasingly interpolated into the m
eans of capital circulation. Such techniques have been deeply successful
the 12- 24 set for 10 straight years, fueled by the breakaway hit 'The O
sbournes,' as well as long-tim
e favorites Real World and Total Request Live. O
sbournes, in fact, is achieving broadcast-level rates at $135,000t o $150,000 for a 30-seconds pot.19 In 1999, MTV w
as ranked number six am
ong basic cable channels, worth roughly U
S$400 million in sales.20 The M
TV Netw
orks total annual (2006) sales are estimated at US$1.3 billion, em
ploying 1100 people. And, now m
ore than ever MTV and its international netw
ork brands (see Plate 4) serve a critical role in the international division of labor as a hub for a variety of other corporate interests. For instance, MTV's international reach now
allows H
ollywood studios and record labels
within w
hich the structure and control of social environments is central. 360 0 of M
TV As M
TV's 2001/2002 Media Kit suggests cavalierly: 'Advertising is an im
age business, my friend - you've got to be seen in all the right circles' (M
TV 2001/2002, media kit 1). The netw
ork's diversi�cation into three prongs - MTV (cable), M
TV.com (internet) and M
TV2 (digital cable, but available to antennae in some locales) - is consciously designed to increase the im
pact of advertising. As the Media Kit explains: The next generation m
edia experience? You're lookin' at it. Each MTV platform
has distinct strengths. MTV 3600 exploits the best of each, then integrates them
to maxim
ize the impact of any program
ming event. O
ne event + three
referring to compass-headings or 'azim
uths' related to mapping, navigation and targeting. It also refers to 'full-spectrum
' intelligence and surveillance; knowing all of the conditions of a given battle or 'operation'. 3600 also often refers to a full-im
mersion virtual environm
ent; 3600 battle simulations are currently the cutting edge of training ground support for air strikes (and the dream
of the electronic gaming industry). The term
recently also refers to government and corporate personnel evaluations, w
here employees are evaluated through aggregated 'full-spectrum
' surveys of all co-workers rather than only im
mediate superiors. In m
any ways, all such connotations of the term
apply to MTV. 3600 alludes as m
uch to 'full
mechanism
(in Europe and the US) for utilizing their new m
ulti-platform targeting strategies to 'ensure clients achieve strong return[s] on investm
ent through all forms of m
arketing comm
unication'. An im
portant part of their success, they explain, is their ability to 'understand and interpret the behavior of our viewers, in relation to TV and life in general' (viacom
brandsolution.co.uk; mtv-m
edia.com). But, M
TV's 3600 strategy also responds to competitive developm
ents in everyday life, namely the Internet, cyber-com
munities and other 'cyber-practices' Like in the w
orkplace, the added machinery attached to leisure practices increase the am
ount of interconnected tasks possible at one time; they increase the rela tive
unusual for them to be talking on the phone w
hile they're watching TV and using their com
puter to download m
usic or IM their friends. M
TV 360 responds to our viewers by giving them
the choices they want. (H
ay 2001, 66)23 The acceleration and compression of social activity (m
easured in time) in the so-called 'N
etwork Society' is both a problem
and opportunity for television stations like MTV. W
hile there are more possible distractions from
the advertising messages rented on that aggregated social tim
e, there are also relatively more spaces to engage social attention by advertisers, there are m
ore platforms for industrial cultural production. Interactive program
ming events capitalize on this situation. The G
M of M
TV,
250,000 Web site visitors an hour. M
TV 360 is not the corporation's �rst foray into 'interactive' programm
ing. In 1995, MTV (U
S) produced a show called Yack Live, w
hich included scrolling live comm
ents from audience em
ails as videos played. In 1997, the (US) netw
ork 'reinvented' itself after several years of declining ratings with the unveiling of a huge studio in the m
iddle of New
York City's recently renovated Times Square. The studio w
as designed and structured for interactivity of all sorts: huge window
s that allowed pedestrians to look in and perhaps get caught on cam
era, �brotic infrastructure allowing �exible interfacing w
ith audiences across a variety of comm
unications platforms, and �exible outdoor an d indoor
interactive game show
, Web Riot. Likew
ise, this landscape also allows for M
TV's �agship video countdown show
, Total Request Live, versions of which exist (in sim
ilar studio landscapes) from W
arsaw to M
umbai. In July 2004, M
TV Europe built a similar glassy studio on London's Leicester Square as the stage for its 'European' version of TRL. U
tilizing the Web (and its optical infrastructure) and integrating new
forms of com
munications into their m
onopoly power becam
e the new w
rinkle in MTV's targeting strategies. These infrastructures also enable a feedback loop for w
hat MTV/M
TV2/ MTVFilm
s president at the time Van To�
er describes as the network's target audience's insatiable hunger for 'access and behind-th e-scenes
individualized experience and more interaction w
ith each other and with the artists', explains M
TV International Group chairm
an Nicholas Butterw
orth in 2001. He continues that the corporation plans to m
ake 'convergence the next great reinvention of MTV. W
ith MTV 360, all three platform
s are di�erent but connected', employing 'a deeper integration of com
munities, w
ith the ability for users to see each other and talk to each other wherever they are'. M
TV 360 encapsulates a relative expansion within the industrial production of culture, incorporating new
ly electri�ed aspects of everyday life, branding them, and exerting proprietary authority over them
. 'We w
anted MTV 360 to be m
ore than cross-promotional m
arketing',
the MTV view
ers'. And through 2005 this strategy was w
ildly successful. As broadband media, portable digital technology, and online com
munity proliferation accelerated in the U
S throughout early 2006, MTV began to push its m
ulti-platform program
ming into high gear, w
ith the 2006 Video Music Aw
ards as a test case. The VMAs had been experiencing constant slippage in their ratings. President of M
TV, Christina Norman, explains: O
ur audience experiences entertainment on m
ultiple platforms so w
e are making the 2006 VM
As a multiscreen, interactive experience that w
ill give them m
ore access to the VMAs on m
ore platforms than ever before, w
ith a live alternate feed of the big show available on M
TV Over dr ive, giving fans
partners that understand multiplatform
programm
ing and know how
to reach our audience in new creative w
ays on air, online, on the ground and on their mobile phones.... W
e are working closely w
ith all of our sponsors to create a seamless entertainm
ent experience that will further solidify our leadership position in this rapidly evolving space. This frantic push into digital platform
s began with Viacom
being outbid by Rupert Murdoch in 2005 to purchase the profoundly popular (54 m
illion registered users) online comm
unity 'Myspace'. Since then, as Business W
eek relates, 'McG
rath has declared "a digital Marshall Plan"... The troops m
ust now deliver services across new
broadband channels, over cell phones, and via video
Cable television made M
TV both possible and necessary. Though it had been in use - delivering network broadcasts to rem
ote parts of the US, via surplus m
ilitary coaxial cable - since the early 1950s, cable emerged as a key U
S growth industry internationally in the m
id-1970s and early 1980s. On the �rst Tuesday of M
arch 1981, after much planning on how
to penetrate the expanding basic cable market, the W
arner-Amex Satellite Entertainm
ent Company launched M
TV, a 24-hour 'video music netw
ork', that would radiate its �rst program
ming roughly �ve m
onths later, on 1 August. Though without m
uch fanfare and on dubious �nancial footing, the importance of M
TV became apparent early on. But this im
portan ce was no
television had developed around a paradigm of replicating successful show
formulas and striving for broad popularity, the proliferation of cable infrastructure developed concom
itantly with new
programm
ing strategies of targeting key (those with high spending pow
er) audiences, known as 'quality dem
ographics'. Thus, audience research was no longer (only) a w
ay of measuring popularity after the fact, but rather a w
ay of producing popularity through the construction of a target audience“. When Bob Pittm
an began conducting research for the viability of a station that combined his generation's tw
o favorite pastimes - w
atching TV and listening to the radio - it was already in the context of the existing know
ledge that
described Pittman's penchant for m
arket research and a willingness to discard traditional 'w
isdom' in favor of pursuing the 'real m
eaning' of the data compiled by phone calls, sales-trend analyses and surveys of the M
ood of the Nation. M
TV began as an elaborate simultaneous targeting and production of both an audience and form
s of already-popular media culture. W
ASEC's audience research team, led by M
arshall Cohen, discovered that no channel was speci�cally targeting A
merica's m
ost a�uent dem
ographic group, post-war 'baby-boom
ers' aged 12-34 and began testing the MTV concept at length w
ith representatives of the target demographic. Their surveys provided evidence that 85 per cent of those po lled
and cable operators needed to launch the project. But it was, perhaps even m
ore importantly, Pittm
an's participant-observation practices, relating the qualitative experience of his own 'psychographic' group, his status as a cultural double agent, m
etabolizing the details of his lived experiences that were central to its success. In O
ctober of 1982, A.C. Nielsen released a survey of M
TV viewers, indicating 85 percent of the 2,000 respondents in the intended dem
ographic group watched M
TV, and those that did viewed it an average of 4.6 hours a w
eek. Furthermore, M
TV's success as a plat form to sell w
as imm
ediately apparent as '63 percent of the survey respondents said they purchased an artist's album after view
ing a clip
intensifying a strategic, if uneven, convergence of the means of cultural expression. As the m
usic industry became increasingly inseparable from
music videos and M
TV's living room m
arketing platform, so too did H
ollywood. In the early 1980s, m
ovie soundtracks became critical com
ponents of �lm m
arketing, revolving around the marriage of popular m
usic artists/ teen idols with the visual dram
a of �lm clips and m
ini-movie trailers. As G
ordon Weaver of Param
ount Pictures explains: That's because the original intent of these music videos is to prom
ote the movie, although there's spil lover bene�t to the record w
hen the movie is played... [Param
ount Pictures distributes the clips to MTV and other television outlets, as w
ell as
with m
usic video. Paramount's saucy pop classic, Flashdance (1983), broke �rst ground in this sort of production and distribution strategy. After Param
ount spent close to US $3 m
illion promoting Flashdance, W
eaver explained: We incorporated the m
usic into all of our radio and TV spots. If you have a single... [Irene Cara's 'What a Feeling'] playing on the radio, the spots are like cross-pollination. This process w
as perhaps summ
ed up best by Gary LeM
el, Columbia Pictures' Colfax division executive, H
ollywood sees a w
ay to get a lot of [free] advertising and marketing for its target audience. The target audience for M
TV is the same target for pictures. You need the 12 to 25 dem
ographic. But, MTV's innovations in vid eo m
usic also
What w
e've introduced with M
TV is a non-narrative form. As opposed to conventional television, w
here you rely on plot and continuity, we rely on m
ood and emotion. W
e make you feel a certain w
ay as opposed to you walking aw
ay with any particular know
ledge. He continues w
ith a McCluhanian sense of opportunism
, You're dealing with a culture of TV babies.., w
hat kids can't do today is follow things too long. They get bored and distracted, their m
inds wander. If inform
ation is presented to them in tight fragm
ents that don't necessarily follow each other, kids can com
prehend that. Part of MTV's innovative dom
inance has been not simply concocting new
forms of surveillance for understanding how
to bette r predict its
or emotive currency to better inspire its cultural authority. Viacom
purchased the MTV N
etworks in Septem
ber of 1985; it also acquired from W
arner Comm
unications the second half interest in Showtim
e. Viacom's acquisition of the M
TV Netw
orks represented a synergy within a synergy, as the um
brella company already included several channels: M
TV, Nickelodeon and VH
-1. How
ever, MTV itself w
as the most im
portant property in the MTV N
etworks. The netw
ork's ability to captivate young audiences through its quick pace and �ashy graphics made it a valuable asset for advertising revenue and its style w
as becoming popular and highly in�uential in other m
edia. In 1996 the MTV N
etworks launched M
TV-2, which w
ould
authoritative in pop culture production, in no small part because of its relentless search for em
ergent cultural forms for incorporation into its productions. This feedback process is called 'cool hunting', w
here researchers visit teens' homes, hangout in their bedroom
s and learn what m
oves them em
otionally, aesthetically. Some such researchers, like at Look-Look, contract out their services. If a client w
ants to 'create a whole new
brand or... product with a com
pany that targets a speci�c audience,' explain D. G
ordon and S. Lee, Look- Look co-founders, they take out information to assist in inspiring project designers, in helping them
market the new
product, even in naming the product, and then eventually testing. They use our
competitive investm
ents. This ability to create its own proprietary research, em
ployed to realize stronger or more authoritative m
onopoly rent, has been critical to maintaining M
TV's cultural authority. Todd Cunningham, M
TV's Senior VP of Brand Strategy and Planning, explains how the corporation uses such 'instrum
ents' to simultaneously represent and direct popular culture: The research e�orts at M
TV are certainly legendary. Ever since the very beginning, there's been a kind of feverish addiction to research and understanding young people.... In virtually every meeting that w
e have, research kicks the meeting o�. There's a signal right there to the organization that,' H
ey, you've got to pay attention to what the v iew
ers are
qualitative kind of touchy-feely things of attitudinal changes and things like that. As Cunningham
explains, MTV uses form
s of more traditional research, such as ratings, and doing m
ore than 200 focus groups per year. How
ever, for MTV's research e�orts, it is im
portant not to do them in traditional places and geographies, frequently doing focus groups on basketball courts, for instance, or store parking lots. O
ften though, MTV w
ill send its quasi-social scientists to people's homes 'w
here [they] get the great chance to actually go out and ri�e through kids' closets and go through their music collections'. O
nce a year, MTV researchers perform
what they call, 'ethnography'. Cunningham
details: An ethnography study.., .i s a study that
through their music collections. W
e go to nightclubs with them
.... We shut the door in their bedroom
s and talk to them about issues that they feel are really im
portant to them. W
e talk with them
about what it's like to date today; w
hat it's like dealing with their parents; w
hat things stress them out the m
ost; what things are really on the hearts and m
inds of them and their peers. W
e have them show
us their favorite clothing out�ts, what they w
ear to parties, some things from
their photo albums and things that w
hich really mean som
ething to them. A
nd then we're allow
ed to come back and translate that into program
ming opportunities or just insights in general about w
hat the audience actually does. It is through these
negotiating the submission of audiences to their authority - conform
ing the structures of feeling of an expanding population to new sets of rents, propertied authority, but also fantastic and targeted spectacles so that 'none m
ay escape'. And w
hile this strategy involves targeting particular aggregate groups, audiences, often it entails using speci�c mem
bers of those groups as intermediaries, key types of consum
ers - recruited wittingly or unw
ittingly as double agents for capital. As M
ichael J. Wolf, M
TV's current president and chief operating o�cer' recently com
mented: Advertisers w
ould rather connect with that one alpha consum
er [young trendsetter] vs. three beta consumers ... W
e understand that audience, and we can help
deeply successful for the network and have set standards for m
edia brand strategies. In a 2002 speech, Sumner Redstone elaborates, M
TV is hotter than ever as the #1 network w
ith the 12- 24 set for 10 straight years, fueled by the breakaway hit 'The O
sbournes,' as well as long-tim
e favorites Real World and Total Request Live. O
sbournes, in fact, is achieving broadcast-level rates at $135,000t o $150,000 for a 30-seconds pot.19 In 1999, MTV w
as ranked number six am
ong basic cable channels, worth roughly U
S$400 million in sales.20 The M
TV Netw
orks total annual (2006) sales are estimated at U
S$1.3 billion, employing 1100 people. And, now
more than ever M
TV and its international network brands (see Plate 4) serve a critical role
and record labels to coordinate product releases simultaneously around the w
orld. It is an international class strategy and imperialistic project in the plainest term
s. This is a project within w
hich the structure and control of social environments is central. 360 0 of M
TV As M
TV's 2001/2002 Media Kit suggests cavalierly: 'Advertising is an im
age business, my friend - you've got to be seen in all the right circles' (M
TV 2001/2002, media kit 1). The netw
ork's diversi�cation into three prongs - MTV (cable), M
TV.com (internet) and M
TV2 (digital cable, but available to antennae in some locales) - is consciously designed to increase the im
pact of advertising. As the Media Kit explains: The next generation m
edia experience? You're lookin' at it.
event. One event + three screens = lim
itless possibilities. Wherever they go, there you [advertisers] are'. The idea of a 3600 strategy originates in m
ilitary Information O
perations, referring to compass-headings or 'azim
uths' related to mapping, navigation and targeting. It also refers to 'full-spectrum
' intelligence and surveillance; knowing all of the conditions of a given battle or 'operation'. 3600 also often refers to a full-im
mersion virtual environm
ent; 3600 battle simulations are currently the cutting edge of training ground support for air strikes (and the dream
of the electronic gaming industry). The term
recently also refers to government and corporate personnel evaluations, w
here employees are evaluated throug h aggregated
spectrum' targeting and em
ersion as it does feedback and evaluation mechanism
s. Viacom Brand Solutions, form
ed in the same year as the 3600 initiative, 2001, is an institutional m
echanism (in Europe and the U
S) for utilizing their new m
ulti-platform targeting strategies to 'ensure clients achieve strong return[s] on investm
ent through all forms of m
arketing comm
unication'. An important part of their success, they explain, is their ability to 'understand and interpret the behavior of our view
ers, in relation to TV and life in general' (viacombrandsolution.co.uk; m
tv-media.com
). But, MTV's 3600 strategy also responds to com
petitive developments in everyday life, nam
ely the Internet, cyber-comm
unities and other ' cy ber-practices'
time; they increase the relative 'productivity' of leisure. As Van To�
er, MTV/M
TV2/MTV Film
s President explains, we've found that this audience m
ulti-tasks like no other. It's not unusual for them to be talking on the phone w
hile they're watching TV and using their com
puter to download m
usic or IM their friends. M
TV 360 responds to our viewers by giving them
the choices they want. (H
ay 2001, 66)23 The acceleration and compression of social activity (m
easured in time) in the so-called 'N
etwork Society' is both a problem
and opportunity for television stations like MTV. W
hile there are more possible distractions from
the advertising messages rented on that aggregated social tim
e, there are also relatively more spa ces to engage
comm
unity platform in the w
orld' for US$102 million (Viacom
2006b). Further, the MTV N
etworks and G
oogle Inc. began a collaboration in the summ
er of 2006 innovating a video distribution model 'that w
ill serve consumers, w
eb publishers and advertisers'. Judy McG
rath remarks of the collaboration, 'O
ur brands are great navigation tools for our audiences, and this deal with G
oogle will enable us to follow
and lead them to new
places'. In this regard, the capital intensive transformation of the terrain of everyday life - including the body - is m
ade into not simply an ad display but a m
ulti-directional feedback mechanism
whereby targeting and transform
ing, leading and following, production and reception are coales ced w
ithin the
force of alienation. What this advancing technological struggle over m
aintaining rentable audiences represents, however, is also the ever-advancing blurring of advertising and consum
er targeting with the practice of every-day life. In 2006, M
TV formed a new
feedback/ targeting project called, 'Viewser Labs'. The labs, a partnership betw
een the network, its advertising sponsors, and other m
edia agencies, are intended to pioneer more targeting innovations (Eldridge 2006). As Sean M
oran, MTV's Senior Vice President of Ad Sales, exclaim
s, Viewser Labs represents the kind of revolutionar y collaboration that only M
TV can bring to the advertising comm
unity... Together with innovative clients and agencies, w
e are goin g to �nd the
we m
ay simply think of as an 'enhanced view
ing experience'. Indeed, according to Viacom, the View
ser Labs will: rethink every m
inute of viewers'. .. Experiences across M
TV's multiple screens, from
pods to programm
ing to promo spots to product integration to com
mercial tim
e and more. The purpose of View
ser Labs is to create an open-ended dialogue between the netw
ork and multiple sponsor partners that w
ill take the industry beyond the 30-second spot and the banner ad, opening up new w
indows and opportunities for all parties. (Viacom
2006d) While, M
TV's Viewser Labs w
ill be what Viacom
calls 'a unique collaboration', it signi�es something m
ore general, the broader geographic class strategies engaged bet ween clients,
Cable television made M
TV both possible and necessary. Though it had been in use - delivering network broadcasts to rem
ote parts of the US, via surplus m
ilitary coaxial cable - since the early 1950s, cable emerged as a key U
S growth industry internationally in the m
id-1970s and early 1980s. On the �rst Tuesday of M
arch 1981, after much planning on how
to penetrate the expanding basic cable market, the W
arner-Amex Satellite Entertainm
ent Company launched M
TV, a 24-hour 'video music netw
ork', that would radiate its �rst program
ming roughly �ve m
onths later, on 1 August. Though without m
uch fanfare and on dubious �nancial footing, the importance of M
TV became apparent early on. But this im
portance wa s no accident.
television had developed around a paradigm of replicating successful show
formulas and striving for broad popularity, the proliferation of cable infrastructure developed concom
itantly with new
programm
ing strategies of targeting key (those with high spending pow
er) audiences, known as 'quality dem
ographics'. Thus, audience research was no longer (only) a w
ay of measuring popularity after the fact, but rather a w
ay of producing popularity through the construction of a target audience“. When Bob Pittm
an began conducting research for the viability of a station that combined his gene ration's tw
o favorite pastimes - w
atching TV and listening to the radio - it was already in the context of the existing know
ledge that ' young, urban
described Pittman's penchant for m
arket research and a willingness to discard traditional 'w
isdom' in favor of pursuing the 'real m
eaning' of the data compiled by phone calls, sales-trend analyses and surveys of the M
ood of the Nation. M
TV began as an elaborate simultaneous targeting and production of both an audience and form
s of already-popular media culture. W
ASEC's audience research team, led by M
arshall Cohen, discovered that no channel was speci�cally targeting Am
erica's most a�
uent demographic group, post-w
ar 'baby-boomers' aged 12-34 and began testing the M
TV concept at length with representatives of the target dem
ographic. Their surveys provided evidence that 85 per cent of those polled expressed
and cable operators needed to launch the project. But it was, perhaps even m
ore importantly, Pittm
an's participant-observation practices, relating the qualitative experience of his own 'psychographic' group, his status as a cultural double agent, m
etabolizing the details of his lived experiences that were central to its success. In O
ctober of 1982, A.C. Nielsen released a survey of M
TV viewers, indicating 85 percent of the 2,000 respondents in the intended dem
ographic group watched M
TV, and those that did viewed it an average of 4.6 hours a w
eek. Furthermore, M
TV's success as a platform to sell w
as imm
ediately apparent as '63 percent of the survey respondents said they purchased an artist's album after view
ing a clip fea turing the
intensifying a strategic, if uneven, convergence of the means of cultural expression. As the m
usic industry became increasingly inseparable from
music videos and M
TV's living room m
arketing platform, so too did H
ollywood. In the early 1980s, m
ovie soundtracks became critical com
ponents of �lm m
arketing, revolving around the marriage of popular m
usic artists/ teen idols with the visual dram
a of �lm clips and m
ini-movie trailers. As Gordon W
eaver of Paramount Pictures explains: That's because the original intent of these m
usic videos is to promote the m
ovie, although there's spillover bene�t to the record when the m
ovie is played... [Paramount Pictures distributes the clips to M
TV and other television outlets, as well as l ocally to
What w
e've introduced with M
TV is a non-narrative form. As opposed to conventional television, w
here you rely on plot and continuity, we rely on m
ood and emotion. W
e make you feel a certain w
ay as opposed to you walking aw
ay with any particular know
ledge. He continues w
ith a McCluhanian sense of opportunism
, You're dealing with a culture of TV babies.., w
hat kids can't do today is follow things too long. They get bored and distracted, their m
inds wander. If inform
ation is presented to them in tight fragm
ents that don't necessarily follow each other, kids can com
prehend that. Part of MTV's innovative dom
inance has been not simply concocting new
forms of surveillance for understanding how
to better predict its targ et demograp
preferences and habits, but further to distil such emotions, or in Raym
ond William
s' terms, structures of feeling into persuasive m
oods or emotive currency to better inspire its cultural authority. Viacom
purchased the MTV N
etworks in Septem
ber of 1985; it also acquired from W
arner Comm
unications the second half interest in Showtim
e. Viacom's acquisition of the M
TV Netw
orks represented a synergy within a synergy, as the um
brella company already included several channels: M
TV, Nickelodeon and VH
-1. How
ever, MTV itself w
as the most im
portant property in the MTV N
etworks. The netw
ork's abil ity to captivate young audiences through its quick pace and �ashy graphics made it a valuable asset for advertising revenue and its style w
as
popular and highly in�uential in other media. In 1996 the M
TV Networks launched M
TV-2, which w
ould allow M
TV to focus more on airing traditional program
ming, rather than m
usic videos. Despite slouching ratings in the early 1990s, M
TV has always rem
ained authoritative in pop culture production, in no small part because of its relentless search for em
ergent cultural forms for incorporation into its productions. This feedback process is called 'cool hunting', w
here researchers visit teens' homes, hangout in their bedroom
s and learn what m
oves them em
otionally, aesthetically. Some such researchers, like at Look-Look, contract out their services. If a client w
ants to 'create a whole new
brand or...
access and behind-the-scenes inform
ation'. Experiencing the contra-dictions of their widespread alienation
from popular cultural production, '[audiences] w
ant a much m
ore individualized experience and more interaction
with each other and w
ith the artists', explains MTV International G
roup chairman N
icholas Butterworth in 2001. H
e
He continues that the corporation plans to m
ake 'convergence the next great reinvention of MTV.W
ith MTV 360,
all three platforms are di�erent but connected', em
ploying 'a deeper integration of comm
unities, with the abi
for users to see each other and talk to each other wherever they are'. M
TV 360 encapsulates a relative expansi
within the industrial production of culture, incorporating new
ly electri�ed aspects of everyday life, branding
them, and exerting proprietary authority over them
. 'We w
anted MTV 360 to be m
ore than cross-promotion
marketing', explains Judy M
cGrath, then-president of the M
TV Group and chairm
an of Interactive Music
(now president of M
TV Netw
orks), 'We w
anted it to connect the MTV view
ers'. And through 2005 this stra
was w
ildly successful. As broadband m
edia, portable digital technology, and online comm
unity prolifer
accelerated in the US throughout early 2006, M
TV began to push its multi-platform
programm
ing into hig
gear, with the 2006 Video M
usic Awards as a test case. The VM
As had been experiencing constant slippage in t
their ratings. President of MTV, Christina N
orman, explains: O
ur audience experiences entertainment on m
ultipl
platforms so w
e are making the 2006 VM
As a m
ultiscreen, interactive experience that will give them
more access
access to the VMA
s on more platform
s than ever before, with a live alternate feed of the big show
available on M
Over drive, giving fans a �rst ever live behind the scenes view
of the VMA
s. Sean Moran, EVP, M
TV 360 Brand Sa
Sales comm
ents: We are fortunate to have a line up of sponsor partners that understand m
ultiplatform prog
and know how
to reach our audience in new creative w
ays on air, online, on the ground and on
their mobile phones.... W
e are working closely w
ith all of our sponsors to create a se
entertainment experience that w
ill further solidify our
leadership posit in this rapidly evolvi
space . This
frantic p
push
in
digital platforms began w
ith Viacom being outbid by Rupert M
urdoch in 2005 to purchase the profoundly popular (54 million registered use
online comm
unity 'Myspace'. Since then, as Business W
eek relates, 'McG
rath has declared "a digital Marshall Plan"... The troops m
ust now d
deliver services across new broadband channels, over cell phones, and via video gam
es'. As McG
rath pitched in January 2006, nobody w
wants to be w
ho they used to be, including us. Media identities, like m
arket share, are up for grabs... If we w
ere launching today, the �rst
song I'd tee up would be the [1980s band] Plim
souls' 'Everywhere at O
nce'. (Lowry 2006, 50) This is a notion echoed by Angel G
ambino,
M
TV Netw
orks UK's VP of com
mercial strategy and digital m
edia: 'MTV has realized that it needs to m
ove beyond TV to engage viewers via the
full range of em
erging digital devices' (Jones 2006, 21). While it m
ay be the case that 'The MTV brand, content and program
ming have alw
ays been
per fectly suited to digital platform
s,' as Gam
bino remarks, 'netw
ork capacity and the device capability haven't been there until now' (Jones 2006, 21). And,
though Gam
bino continues on that this project goes way beyond user generated content... it's about giving audiences com
plete control of... our programm
ing... giving them the ch
of ideas that we w
ould never th
ink of (Jones 2006, 21) it is clear that the speci�c content of their programm
ing has taken - in no small w
ay - a backseat to the imperial d
the means of producing and engaging popular culture. H
ead of interactive operations at MTV N
etworks U
K & Ireland, Matthew
Kershaw, explains: O
ur bu
business isn 't about w
orshipping at the altar of TV anymore... W
e have to focus on being where the audience needs us to be, w
hether th
on a two- inch s c reen or a 42-inch high-de�nition one. W
hat is increasingly important is capturing the spatial relations im
plicit
in contemporary structures of feeling: looking in at that w
hich is so widely m
eaningful and yet enclos
elite. 'There are very strong emotional bene�ts from
having a remote control in your
having a remote control in your hand,' explains
with m
usic video. Paramount's saucy pop classic, Flashdance (1983), broke �rst ground in this sort of production and distribution strategy. After Param
ount spent close to US $3 m
illion promoting Flashdance, W
eaver explained: We incorporated the m
usic into all of our radio and TV spots. If you have a single... [Irene Cara's 'What a Feeling'] playing on the radio, the spots are like cross-pollination. This process w
as perhaps summ
ed up best by Gary LeM
el, Columbia Pictures' Colfax division executive, H
ollywood sees a w
ay to get a lot of [free] advertising and marketing for its target audience. The target audience for M
TV is the same target for pictures. You need the 12 to 25 dem
ographic. But, MTV's inn ovations in video m
usic also rede�ned the structure of pop expressive forms. In the early
with a com
pany that targets a speci�c audience,' explain D. Gordon and S. Lee, Look- Look co-founders, they take out inform
ation to a ssist in inspiring project designers, in helping them m
arket the new product, even in nam
ing the product, and then eventually testing. They use our database to recruit kids to test the products out, stu� like that. But such apparatuses of industrial cultural production, social research, are also further enclosed as competitive investm
ents. This ability to create its own proprietary research, em
ployed to realize stronger or more authoritative m
onopoly rent, has been critical to ma inta ining M
TV's cultural authority. Todd Cunningham, M
TV's Senior VP of Brand Strategy and P la
explains how the corporation uses such 'instrum
ents' to simultaneously represent and direct popular culture: The research e�orts at M
TV are certainly legendary. Ever since the very beginning, there's been a kind of feverish addiction to research and understanding young people.... In virtually every meeting that w
e have, research kicks the meeting o�. There's a signal right there to the organization that,' H
ey, you've got to pay attention to what the view
ers are about and what kinds of things are happening w
ith them,' w
hether it be shifts in the ratings, shifts in, kind of viewershi p behavior and patterns, to the m
ore qualitative kind of touchy-feely things of attitudinal
doing more than 200 focus groups per year. H
owever, for M
TV's research e�orts, it is impo
rtant not to do them in traditional places and geographies, frequently doing focus groups on basketball courts, for instance, or store parking lots. O
ften though, MTV w
ill send its quasi-social scientists to people's homes 'w
here [they] get the great chance to actually go out and ri�e through kids' closets and go through their music collections'. O
nce a year, MTV researchers perform
what they call, 'ethnography'. Cunningham
details: An ethnography study.., .is a study that basically goes out and tries to understand the di�erences betw
een audiences - to
through their music collections. W
e go to nightclubs with them
.... We shut the
door in their bedrooms and talk to them
about issues that they feel are really important to them
. We talk w
ith them about w
hat it's like to date today; what it's like dealing w
ith their parents; what things stress them
out the most; w
hat things are really on the hearts and minds of them
and their peers. We have them
show us their favorite clothing out�ts, w
hat they wear to parties, som
e things from their photo album
s and things that which really m
ean something to them
. And then w
e're allowed to com
e back and translate that into programm
ing
of surveillance that MTV is able to adm
inistrate through simultane
ously leading and following. It concom
itantly 'democratizes' its production process, w
hile implicitly negotiating the subm
ission of audiences to their authority - conforming the structures of feeling of an expanding population to new
sets of rents, propertied authority, but also fantastic and targeted spectacles so that 'none may escape'. A
nd while this strategy involves targeting particular aggregate groups, audiences, often it entails using speci�c m
embers of those groups as interm
ediaries, key types of consumers - recruited w
ittingly or
as double agents for capital. As Michael J. W
olf, MT
V's current president and chief operating o�cer' recently com
mented: Advertisers w
ould rather connect with that one alpha consum
er [young trendsetter] vs. three beta consumers ... W
e understand that audience, and we can help them
do that. Trendsetting, 'Alpha', consumers them
selves are increasingly interpolated into the means of capital circulation. Such techniques have been deeply successful for the netw
ork and have set standard s for media brand strategies. In a 2002 speech, Sum
ner Redstone elaborates, MTV is hotter than
long-time favorites Real
World and Total Request Live. O
sbournes, in fact, is achieving broadcast-level rates at $135,000t o $150,000 for a 30-seconds pot.19 In 1999, MTV w
as ranked number six am
ong basic cable channels, worth roughly U
S$400 million in sales.20 The M
TV Netw
orks total annual (2006) sales are estimated at U
S$1.3 billion, employing 1100 people. And, now
more than ever M
TV and its international network brands (see Plate 4) serve a cr itic al role in the international division of labor as a hub for a variety of other corporate interest s . Fo r
and record labels to coordinate product releases simultaneously around the w
orld. It is an international class strategy and imperialistic project in the plainest term
s. This is a project within w
hich the structure and control of social environments is central. 360 0 of M
TV As M
TV's 2001/2002 Media Kit suggests cavalierly: 'Advertising is an im
age business, my friend - you've got to be seen in all the right circles' (M
TV 2001/2002 , media kit 1). The netw
ork's diversi�cation into thre
MTV (cable), M
TV.com (internet) and M
TV2 (digital cable, but available to antennae in some locales) - is consciously designed to increase the im
pact of advertising. As the Media Kit explains: The next generation m
edia experience? You're lookin' at it. Each MTV platform
has distinct strengths. MTV 3600 exploits the best of each, then integrates them
to maxim
ize the impact of any program
ming event. O
ne event + three screens = limitless possibilities. W
h
[advertisers] are'. The idea of a 3600 strategy originates in military Inform
ation Operations, referring to com
pass-headings or 'azimuths' related to m
apping, navigation and targeting. It also refers to 'full-spectrum' intelligence and surveillance; know
ing all of the conditions of a given battle or 'operation'. 3600 also often refers to a full-imm
ersion virtual environment; 3600 battle sim
ulations are currently the cutting edge of training ground s
strikes (and the dream of the electronic gam
ing industry). The term recently also refers to governm
ent and corporate personnel evaluations, where em
ployees are evaluated through aggregated 'full-spectrum' surveys of all co-w
orkers rather than only imm
ediate superiors. In many w
ays, all such connotations of the term apply to M
TV. 3600 alludes as much to 'full spectrum
' targeting and emersion as it does feedback and evel
evaluation mechanism
s. Viacom Brand Solutions, form
ed in the same year as the 3600 initiative, 2001, is an institutional m
echanism (in Europe and the U
S) for utilizing their new m
ulti-platform targeting strategies to 'ensure clients achieve strong return[s] on investm
ent through all forms of m
arketing comm
unication'. An important part of their success, they explain, is their ability to 'understand and interpret the beh
of our viewers, in relation to TV and life in general' (viacom
brandsolution.co.uk; mtv-m
edia.com). But, M
TV's 3600 strategy also responds to competitive developm
ents in everyday life, namely the Internet, cyber-com
m
unities and other 'cyber-practices' Like in the workplace, the added m
achinery attached to leisure practices incre ase the amoun
of interconnected tasks possible at one time; they increase the relative 'productivity' of leisure. As Van To�
er, MTV/M
TV2/MTV Film
s President explains, we've found that this audience m
ulti-tasks
like no other. It's not unusual for them to be talking on the phone w
hile they're watching TV and u sin g their
computer to dow
nload music or IM
their friends. MTV 360 responds to our view
ers by giving them the choices they w
ant. (Hay 2001, 66)23 The acceleration and com
pression of soc
ial activity (measured in tim
e) in the so-called 'Netw
ork Society' is both a problem and op t
from the advertising m
essages rented on that aggregated social time, there are also relatively m
ore spaces to engage social attention by advertisers, there are more
platforms for industrial cultural production. Interactive program
ming eve
capitalize on this situation. The GM
of MTV, D
avid Cohn, explains 'It's all about casting a wider net. Control Freak has been a gratifying success, in term
s
of interactive TV. The show gets an average of 250,000
Web site visitors an hour. M
TV 360 is not the corporation's �rst foray into 'interactive' programm
ing. In 1995, MTV (U
S) produced a show calle
Yack Live, which included scrolling live com
ments from
audience emails as videos played. In 1997, the (U
S) network 'reinvented'
itself after several years of declining ratings with the unveiling of a huge studio in the m
iddle of New
York City’s
recently renovated Times Square. The studio w
as designed and structured for interactivity of
all sorts: huge window
s that allowed pedestrians to look in and perhaps get
caught on camera, �brotic infrastructure allow
ing
�exible interfacing w
ith audien ces across a variety of comm
unications platforms, and �exible outdoor and indoor cam
era
architech tecture allowing out- of-the-studio �lm
ing. These innovations on the landscape allowed for new
ent it entailed, and intensifying a strategic, if uneven, convergence of the m
eans of cultural expression. As the music in
dustry became inc reasingly inseparable from
music videos and M
TV's living room m
arketing platform, so too did H
ollywood. In the early 1980s, m
ovie soundtracks becam
e critical components of �
lm m
arketing, revolving around the marriage of popular m
usic artists/ teen idols with the visual dram
a of �lm clips and m
ini-movie trailers. As Gordon W
eaver of Paramount Pictu
res explains: That's because the original intent of these music videos is to prom
ote the movie, although there's spillover bene�t to the record w
hen the movie is played... [Param
ount Pictures distributes the clips to MTV and other television outlets, as well as locally to clubs.] W
e do this through our o�ces in New
York and ou r 43 advertising agencies around the country...I t's a god
send. The demographics are so perfect w
ith music video. Paramount's saucy pop classic, Flashdance (1983), broke �rst ground in this sort of production and distribut ion strat egy. After Paramou nt spent close to US $3 mill ion promoting Fl as hdance, Weaver expla ined: We incorik ids can comprehend that. better prenc, but further to distil such emotions, o
r in Raymond
enhanced viewing experience
ill rethink
Artist Statement
My objective was to use type to try to speak about an issue involving topics like society and technology. I decided to focus on how MTV has a huge impact on society. I found a couple articles on MTV and decided to transform my text into a picture of Snooki. I chose to not actually fill in all of Snooki’s face, I actually only wanted to make her hair, eyes, lips and dress. After finishing all of those features I looked over it and thought it might have been missing a little something so I decided to add a nose. I chose Snooki because she really gets a lot out of what MTV does and I think she really embodies what MTV is now. Snooki is well known even to those who do not watch the show she is in, also both MTV and herself gain a lot from Jersey Shore.
Cresent Luna is a typeface that I made designed out of geometrical shapes. I only used three different shapes including two circles and a rectangle. I was inspired by the moon to create this modular font, hence the name. Although this font may not be very practical for everyday use it is a font that could be used for specific occasions
7
8
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