Thursday, July 10, 2008

Fucking No, MTV

Last week MTV premiered a new "show" called FNMTV. It has bold block letters in yellow and pink, and it's supposed to combine music with the web, like everything these days. At first glance it can seem like a good thing, since MTV is bringing back music videos. Yay! But not really. They do play music videos, true. They're identified in big bold block letters over the entire video when it starts. But they don't do that at the end. This is stupid, because if you come across a video midway through and you don't know any details, you won't find out. MTV is assuming that everyone will have a laptop right in front of them so they can just pull up the website, instead of doing the easy and proper thing by labeling the video.

In their convergence of web and music, FNMTV is giving behind-the-scenes tidbits of the video by artists, in little boxes featured in different corners of the screen. Cool...except it's a distraction from the song and the video. VH1 has been doing this for years (during segments on their Top 20 Countdown and any end-of-the-year wrapups) and I'm pretty sure MTV has jumped on this bandwagon earlier, but they rarely show music videos anymore so it's hard to remember. But what really irks me is the karaoke features. Random kids are shown in their bedrooms or living rooms, with their friends, singing along and making shoutouts. It's TRL, without the interviews and pleas to vote. They cut out the middleman! FNMTV, like TRL, encourages viewers to become a part of the process and make their own videos and answer questions. I don't see why all that work is necessary, but whatever.

Apparently FN means Friday Night, which is when the show is on. Coulda fooled me; all I've seen is it on in the morning. I like to watch my videos in their entirety (stop cutting them off) without annoying interruptions by some overenthusiastic teens, and know who I'm watching. At least with TRL I got a countdown out of it.

4 comments:

petpluto said...

Let me tell you my most aggravating thing about watching countdowns today: I have a song I like. I want to hear/see it in its entirety. I sit through several other videos that I don't like at all to get to my video. Five seconds are played, and the countdown moves onto the next song. It sounds like FN is like that all the time. How sad.

John said...

Hey, does anyone remember WebRIOT? That was a show on MTV where they played music videos and the audience could participate. It was a game show on top of all of that, though, so the shortened songs were timed to the game's rounds and there were no annoying kids giving shout-outs. Just another concept being retreaded without its charm and spit back into the marketplace.
If MTV wants to revitalize their Friday nights, they should bring back the 10 Spot!

petpluto said...

I have no recollection of WebRIOT, but I floved the 10 Spot! I want the 10 Spot back!

MediaMaven said...

WebRIOT sounds awesome. I loved the 10 Spot too (home of Daria!) Except now the 10 Spot would show The Hills.