This article includes confirmation of the closures from MTV, including confirmation that Club programming will move to MTV Base, and Rock programming will move to MTV Music
and they say "In a statement, MTV told us: "Music is in our DNA and remains at the heart of MTV. It continues to play an important, prominent role on the main channel, and we will continue to program five channels offering fans 24/7 music, including MTV Music, MTV Hits, MTV Classic, MTV Base and MTV Live HD" (I guess they forgot MTV Live is not on Sky?), also 24/7 music are we sure in that department?, they have spots for teleshopping so how does that count under 24/7 music?
For me its the lack of variety thats buggering them up, they could have reverted VH1 back to music and had better music programming but before they axed they just left it to rot, I wouldn't be surprised that they say music is important to them but their advertising in general says otherwise ie MTV reality shows.
This article includes confirmation of the closures from MTV, including confirmation that Club programming will move to MTV Base, and Rock programming will move to MTV Music
Would they not be better getting rid of either MTV Hits or MTV Music or at least rebrand one of them to something else as they are basically the same playing recent chart hits?
I'm guessing they haven't thought that one out or on the other they believe that playing the same stuff on both the viewers wouldn't tell much of a difference anyway!
Question and I could be wrong: but wasn't VH1/MTV Classic declining too before the recent kick up its butt with additional 70s/80s music on it? Even at one point the channel was featuring more recent hits before they we're labelled "classic", I think since the NOW channels have launched its been a bit of a wake up call for MTV in general and quite possibly not the go to place they once were? (ratings are OK on some of its channels but its pretty much declined)
I'm guessing it's based on viewing figures.
The fact that half (4 out of 8 ) of their music channels are based on recent chart music shows that's where the majority of the viewers are, and that will still be the case after the closures (2 out of 4 channels).
The fact that MTV still has 8 music channels, more than any other broadcaster, together with declining viewing figures, doesn't make this announcement much of a surprise really.
My money is on Trace Urban as the next channel to either close, or rebrand as a chart music channel. Its ratings have improved recently, but only because of the addition of chart music in the morning
I don't think this is the end in regards to MTV "themed" channels going I expect they'll be further cuts if not later in the year maybe next or year after?
Saying that for me it seems like we are going back to analogue days of channels if I am honest, what the channels we're good at after 2000 seems to be now its downfall but on the other MTV is only network (music wise) that still has teleshopping (par Channel 4/4Music yet Bauer at the time pulled the plug on their channels in regards to teleshopping) but MTV and its channels still do (for me I think thats when alarm bells started ringing and its reliance on it still)
Could they not bring MTV LiveHD back to Sky to fill part of the gap left by the 3 closures in that section?
its a good idea for Sky viewers but why was MTV Live dropped from Sky in the first place? I thought they dropped the HD counterpart and the SD(?) was still there (guess I am wrong on that part)
Could they not bring MTV LiveHD back to Sky to fill part of the gap left by the 3 closures in that section?
its a good idea for Sky viewers but why was MTV Live dropped from Sky in the first place? I thought they dropped the HD counterpart and the SD(?) was still there (guess I am wrong on that part)
I think both the SD and HD versions were on Sky, and when they removed the HD version, they replaced it with MTV Music +1, and the SD version remained initially (in the same epg slot) before eventually being removed, if my memory serves me right.
Also add that when MTV Live HD shut down on Sky, the adverts (and the fillers on the European version) also disappeared , so the schedule changed from a 30-60 minutes based, to the current more 'off the clock' one
MTV Rocks closure means Kerrang! will be the only dedicated rock channel on air.
The fact that MTV Rocks is one of the casualties here doesn’t surprise me at all. Indie music has become more pop-leaning in recent years, and pop punk/alternative music has grown in popularity. Traditional rock releases are few and far between nowadays. Classic rock playlists are getting smaller and rock stations are switching to alternative, being bought and flipped to a completely different format (like New York’s iconic WPLJ becoming a K-LOVE station) or closing down altogether.
With some of the output moving across to the remaining MTV music based channels, this seems to be a case of cutting transmission costs, but the trend is for music videos to watched on demand via YouTube.
On the other hand, M6 which used to play a ton of music vids, still plays them overnight in France and there's still the blurry PQ NOW decades channels.