After watching the video today, I couldn't help notice the MTV executives boasting about their program, Total Request Live. As I understood it, this program was allowed to provide free advertisement for artists and products, while raking in high ratings. I don't remember exactly when it was, but sometime during the last year TRL was shut down, due to poor ratings. Comparing the reactions to the program shown in the PBS documentary, and the reactions shown in the last year or so made me question what it was exactly that ended this flagship of "cool." Was it because the program outran its "cool" run? Or was it because the program committed the fatal sin of letting its marketing show? I'd like to believe that it was the latter, and that the public finally wised up to MTV's shameless marketing ploys, but I know that more likely it was just that the program seemed outdated. What does everyone else think?
-Tara
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From a pretty objective view, or maybe you would say uninformed, since I have never seen TRL or heard much about it, I'd say it succumbed to the cyclical nature of marketing.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that TRL outwardly advertises its affiliation with MTV. MTV probably thinks that sticking its brand name onto TRL will start an interest among MTV viewers. Some hierarchies of brands choose not to display its affiliation. For instance, I wasn't aware that Coca-Cola was the company for Dasani water. Philip Morris, a cigarette company, owns Kraft -- that's not a relationship you hear about very often. But this technique is just another marketing ploy.
-- tori
I think TRL's demise resulted from a combination both of Tara's suggestions. MTV has nearly exhausted its coolness quota. While it is slightly odd, I imagine the type of coolness Rushkoff talks about as a physical substance allotted to corporations marketing to teens. This will no doubt come across as strange, but bear with me as I embark on my unusual metaphor.
ReplyDeleteImagine a large bucket, if you will. This bucket is the coolness quota. Anything that is cool has such a quota, be it a fashion like bell bottoms or a word like "tubular". These things have a certain quantity of coolness (if coolness can be quantified), a mysterious liquid comprised of raw teen appeal that exists in our metaphorical bucket. Certain things may have more or less of coolness than others, but the coolness is a finite resource. Inevitably, one is left with an empty bucket.
Let's apply this metaphor to MTV. As exhibited by the subpar quality of recent seasons of The Real World, MTV is clearly reaching the bottom of its bucket. This is Tara's first proposition: "MTV is outrunning it's 'cool' run." However, MTV is also suffering from Tara's second proposition; their marketing ploy has become transparent to teens. This has shot a hole in the bottom of MTV's coolness bucket. In effect, MTV is trying to scoop out the remaining coolness out of its bucket as that same coolness rapidly leaks out from the bottom; it is losing from both ends. MTV is clearly aware of this. They ripped TRL off the air to use as fodder to plug the hole.
-Colin Groundwater