MTV Lets Viewers Call the Tunes
By Karen Brown
from the June 4, 2001 issue of Broadband Week
Though the marketing-only approach is a general rule among network Web sites, there are some that are giving their Internet sites more interactive punch.
A case in point is MTV Networks, which owns the MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon cable channels, among others. It is knitting online and on-air programming together directly through MTV 360, a new initiative to fuse content from MTV, MTV2 and mtv.com.
"All of those screens together are going to provide the best experience," says Susan Keith, vice president of broadband development for MTV Networks. The initiative also gives plugs for broadband services to benefit cable MSOs "because there is more and more broadband-rich content on the site that's being promoted on air--it's a key piece of the programming experience and they will need high-speed access or want it."
For example, MTV's "TRL" daily video hit parade asks viewers to vote and send e-mails online. A whopping 77 percent of the channel's viewers hop online to interact, with upwards of 350,000 Web votes cast daily. Another program called Control Freak lets viewers vote online about the next video they want to see, and provides a running tally of the votes.
"This was a great success for us, because with zero promotion we got over 200,000 users per hour, and those votes continue this day to draw a huge crowd," Keith says. "When we provide that and we have an online and an on-air component, we find that ratings increase on air, and page views, votes and interaction with the Web pages increase."
Still, MTV has not been immune to the Internet downturn; it laid off staff members in September and the drive now is to stay "lean and be smart and look at the behaviors of our viewers," Keith says. "You did have the economy give a wakeup call to online sites and everybody in the investment community ... it kind of went down. But what's very intriguing to me is there are more examples of this marriage and more concrete success stories of what we are doing than ever before. And I think we are just scratching the surface as to what that will look like."
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