- Title: TELEVISION-MTV MTV rolls out latest revamp aimed at social media savvy viewers
- Date: 25th June 2015
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JUNE 22, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER FOR VIACOM INTERNATIONAL MEDIA NETWORKS UK, KERRY TAYLOR, WORKING AT HER LAPTOP IN MTV OFFICE (SOUNDBITE) (English) CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER FOR VIACOM INTERNATIONAL MEDIA NETWORKS UK, KERRY TAYLOR, SAYING: "What team and myself came up with was the idea of MTV BUMP. This allows our
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MTV, the channel that revolutionised the music industry by playing artists' videos on rotation, is reinventing itself again, opening up to its social media savvy audience by putting their videos on air.
Using #MTVBump, viewers will potentially be able to see their content from social media sites Instagram or Vine two hours of it being posted during the channel's break windows.
"What team and myself came up with was the idea of MTV BUMP. This allows our audiences all over the world to create short form content, to create videos via Vine or Instagram or on our site and by hashtagging #mtvbump, we can then see all that content, curate our favourite pieces and put those on air on MTV all around the world," Kerry Taylor, chief marketing officer for Viacom International Media Networks UK, told Reuters.
The revamp, evolving from "I want my MTV" to "I am my MTV", is being rolled out at a time when streaming and video platforms have gained ground and traditional television networks have suffered lower ratings.
Changing viewing habits have weighed on MTV owner Viacom Inc recently, especially in the United States.
"I think we just understand that MTV is a 30 year old brand and we absolutely always have to be reinventing ourselves. And so it is very much for us about understanding that the only thing that our audience will reject from us is creative cowardice and so for MTV to look like a traditional broadcaster is just not acceptable to our audience so we absolutely have to take risks, we have to create and we have to do something new," Taylor said.
Launched in 1981, MTV first aired video jockeys playing music videos. It has since varied its format, now showing reality TV shows aimed at teenagers and young adults.
With an age 16-34 commercial demographic, social media is key for a brand which broadcasts in more than 160 countries.
For #MTVBump, the channel teamed up with B-Reel Creative for the technology that sees the best videos picked and on air in two hours -- something MTV says no other channel is doing on a global scale.
Taylor said it will eventually introduce MTV Canvas, a digital sticker book where viewers can create MTV logos.
How this will fare with a digital savvy audience remains to be seen, said Nick Thomas, digital media expert at Ovum.
"There is a real challenge, I think, in making that lean back experience, that linear scheduled TV which just plays in the background is not necessarily in tune with an era where people are creating their own content, they're sharing it, they're finding their own talent, they're finding their own friends. It's a sort of an attempt to try and engage with that world and it absolutely makes sense strategically, whether it will work in practice we'll see." - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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