MuchMusic has just been punk’d.
Today, CTV is putting a big shiny sign out at Yonge and Davenport — “MTV.” Those are three letters that will likely chill the hearts of programmers over at CHUM/CITY’s battered bunker.
CTV is hanging the famous red logo on the Masonic Temple. The former home of Mike Bullard is being retrofitted for MTV Live, a daily music magazine that will likely go head-to-head whenever it launches (“this year” is as specific as a CTV spokesperson would get) with MuchOnDemand (weekdays at 5 p.m.).
The news isn’t really that there’s a new show or that there’s a new building but that there’s a new channel. CTV intends to rebrand their forgotten specialty channel Talktv — channel 64 on Rogers in Toronto — as MTV. That will put MTV more or less on a level playing field with MuchMusic (channel 29) and MuchMoreMusic (36). Will that have an impact on their ratings? Would an NFL franchise in Toronto impact the Argos?
As Osbourne fans might remember, there already was an MTV Canada, hidden way up in the 200s as part of the digital tier. CHUM thought they had it as part of a deal to acquire Craig broadcasting, but MTV International had an out clause if Craig was ever sold. That’s when CTV backed up their money truck and, in September of 2005, stole MTV from under CHUM’s nose. Gone were the MTV rights, with CHUM rebranding the two orphaned Craig digital stations Razer and PunchMuch.
Like all networks, CTV lusts after young viewers; all that giddy, hyperventillating star talk on the mother network is apparently like crack for kids.
Now, what better way to snare young viewers than with the world’s No. 1 youth TV brand? Borrowing a page from their highly successful prime time play book, CTV is buying younger viewers by acquiring this iconic U.S. property. MTV is the world’s surest shortcut to the 18-34-year-old demos advertisers covet.
So besides the one Canadian show announced yesterday, look for CTV to roll out such U.S. MTV hits as Laguna Beach, Gauntlet 2, Wild ‘N Out and Real World: Key West when MTV launches in the coming months. (And look for about a billion promos for them during American/Canadian Idol, CSI, etc.).
MuchMusic, which, along with sister station MuchMoreMusic, used to live by the MTV sword, now finds it dangling overhead. Back in the good old days, Canada’s music station used to buy MTV programs on the open market on a show-by-show basis. Now Much has to live in the real world without the Real World.
The good news for Much is that homegrown shows like Video On Trial (Mondays at 8 p.m.) have shown that Canadian viewers will embrace fun and snappy Canadian music shows. That cheap-to-produce series features four wise-ass judges goofing on a bottomless assortment of horrible videos. People who think Simon Cowell is too cruel on American Idol haven’t heard VOT’s razor-tongued Debra Digiovanni rip into Kanye West, Britney Spears or Kelly Osbourne.
The bad news is the MuchMusic VJ Search (repeating tonight at 7 p.m. on MuchMusic; also Mondays at 8 p.m. on CITY-TV). Under-produced and oh, so wannabe, the series is like Big Brother meets Mallrats. If these eight remaining knuckleheads are the future of MuchMusic, good luck with that MTV thing.
