Kanye West performs "Stronger." Wouldn't it have been nice to see the whole thing? Photo: MTV.
Last night’s MTV Video Music Awards were so poorly run (even after the Britney Spears debacle) that it couldn’t have been an accident, could it? Cutting off performances by superstars in mid-song, trying to pass off taped performances as live, and otherwise making music seem like nothing more than a commodity (available for purchase at Rhapsody.com, natch) to the one-time “Music Television” – it had to be a concerted effort.
Here are some conspiracy theories on why:
- Bait and switch. By showing only pieces of performances by Kanye West, 50 Cent, Foo Fighters, Maroon 5 and other top hitmakers during the show, MTV basically wanted to drive people to its website where fans knew they would eventually be able to see the whole thing. Essentially what MTV aired last night was a two-hour trailer for content on its website. Rest assured, this strategy will never work again. [UPDATE: Ratings up, web traffic sets record]
- The Live 8 effect. Remember when MTV botched the historic concert by showing its hosts yammering instead of the events that were happening live? The outcry was so loud, they decided to rerun the performances without interruption. Well, this time out, MTV has already scheduled several “remixed” versions of the show that will air versions throughout the week where they plan to show the entire performances of songs that viewers voted for, giving the network a whole week of different programming instead of just one night.
- We hate music. What better way to show how MTV has broken away from its “Music Television” identity and moved fully into reality-show mode than to diminish the importance of music and music videos. Now, music only serves as background music on the channel or something to take a show in and out of commercials – nothing worthy of being the centerpiece of a whole network. Sure, Justin Timberlake challenged the network to “play more videos,” adding, “We don’t want to see the Simpsons on reality television.” But they made him accept his award for male artist of the year from the girls from “The Hills.”
MORE VMAs: Kanye tells Z100: 'MTV betrayed me' and 'They exploited Britney in helping to end her career.' [Z100]
'Ye vows never to return to MTV. [MTV]
And apparently, the Kid Rock/Tommy Lee fight was real. [AP]
Comments (1)
yeah the awards were terrible I have seen so many large news sources complain about the awards such as TMZ, Famoso Magazine, Media Takeout, CNN, etc