I Want My MTV?

The moon man lands today at 6pm ET.

MTV is finally launching in Canada, after a short, half-hearted and aborted attempt a couple of years ago on a couple of digi-channels, Canadian network Behemoth CTV is going to bring the venerable brand north.

Americans and people in other countries may be surprised to know that MTV isn't in Canada yet, mostly since it certainly seems to be everywhere else.

The MTV incursion was headed off for years by the fact that we in Canada had our own Music Video channel, Muchmusic. Though Muchmusic started three years after MTV, it came out of a tradition of music programming that had started on sister channels like Citytv -- whose New Music was one of, if not the first, program to bring journalist chops to music reportage. If you were a teen in Canada in the late 70's or early 1980's, you probably heard about Talking Heads, The Police, Elvis Costello, and any number of other bands from The New Music, and later, Much.

(Full disclosure here: for years I worked for CHUM, the parent company of Muchmusic, though except for a couple of small projects here and there, I never worked for Much directly.)

In its time, Muchmusic was pretty innovative. From the beginning, and especially after their 1986 move to their current digs on Queen Street West, Much was about interacting with the street. MTV VJ's did their links in a canned, empty studio. Much cameras would wander outside the building and up the block, and there was always something going on in the "environment."

Much presented Concerts in their environment, and people and fans piled in and asked questions. Much presented election coverage aimed at youth -- and believe me, there was no more arresting image than seeing a VJ like Master T bull his way into a scrum with the then-current Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, and ask, "Yo Brian, what's up?"

In short, while MTV was exporting its brand around the world, scrappy Muchmusic was bending the rules as best it could, on a dollar-and-a-half budget and with a lot of heart.

Inevitably, things change. MTV started with the Real World, and slowly discovered its niche was lifestyle, not videos. Much was a little slower off that mark. Then again, MTV also looked north to its cousin and saw some things it liked, too. Total Request Live is, and was, an MTV response to the vibrancy and audience interaction Muchmusic brought to the airwaves every day.

What changed so much wasn't MTV, or Much, but the idea of who you were supposed to cater to, and how you were going to get them.

When MTV and Much first came on the scene, they were different because youth viewers weren't in the bullseye. I remember that time very well -- it wasn't too long ago when it was only the baby boomers who were in the demographic bullseye. Everything catered to the boomers. If you were young and you wanted to see yourself, or people like you, Much or MTV was the only place to do it.

Once the culture shifted, and everyone started chasing the youth brand, two things happened: the loyalty that initial generation had to Much and MTV was replaced by fickleness: when you have a host of choices, you don't feel the passionate connection to a channel as the only place to see your culture...and the channels themselves needed to change.

We know what happened to MTV...they deemphasized the M and got heavy into reality. Some shows changed the landscape, some dumb-downed the culture, and others just became crummy, comfort food fun.

Much tried to get bigger and slicker. There's nothing weirder now than tuning in and seeing the current "Much On Demand" show that airs daily -- mainly because it's a weird photocopy of Total Request Live. So, yeah -- Much is now doing a photocopy of the MTV photocopy of the format they invented.

Shows like the Muchmusic Video Awards tried to get bigger and better. The concerts aren't in the environment anymore, they're in the parking lot and they're huge. Oh, and they don't call it the environment, either.

The goofiness of years gone by is gone. No more do they pull stunts like the annual Christmas Tree Toss, where they set the Christmas tree on fire and chuck it off the roof into a dumpster, all to fake sports commentary ... nope, now Much is very much the slick, forced hip reflection of youth culture that you see everywhere else.

The problem with this is that Much never really could compete on that level. It doesn't really have the money. Not when stacked against CTV and MTV. CTV's launch plans for MTV include a programming block on the main network, an on-demand channel, and what sounds like a fairly major, major online venture where you can basically create your own MTV, MTV Overdrive. Eep. That's a lot of money right there.

Interestingly enough, in the battle for eyeballs and cultural touchstones that's about to take place, belatedly, in Canada, I find myself thinking of a little channel I saw in South Africa.

It's called GO. And it's a youth-branded station on the satellite there. They air MTV shows, but also youth targeted dramas like The O.C. (I still have one of their cheeky promo postcards: how's this for a tagline: what do these kids do for fun after school? Each other. Now that's funny.)

GO goes into malls, and runs testimonials from kids from all over South Africa. The ad campaigns they run are colorful and wacky, and very cheeky. The graphics, the approach, the schedule choice: everything about it says, "this is YOUR channel."

I found it recognisable. Familiar and comforting. Because that's what I remember youth TV being - a refuge from the larger culture where nobody cared about you. And I guess to an extent, the culture is still a little like that in South Africa.

Now that MTV and Much are going to battle it out on Canadian turf, head to head, I'm hoping the competition will be good for both. It's a chance for Much to step up and innovate again. MTV the channel here is saddled with a regulatory Talk-TV format which hopefully means it won't be able to horn in too much on Much's musical bonafides. In a culture where you're the only youth alternative, I'm not sure there's room for both, because one has to be the destination.

But now there is no one destination. There's VOD and Cell Phones and XBox and Broadband and as long as you're all chasing the same demographic, then I guess there's plenty of room in the tent.

I just can't help but feel that today's young people are missing something. If you're constantly being catered to, how do you ever discover anything outside your comfort zone?

Maybe you don't.

That's sad.

JAM article about the changeover is available here.