New Channel Challenges MTV
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Move over MTV: The U Network is coming to college campuses this fall, boasting what it calls a more intelligent, "clean" alternative for today’s young people.
[T]he originators say they’ll cover the Bush presidential campaign to balance coverage by MTV and the Rock the Vote campaign, which they say tend to steer young adults to Democratic causes.
"We are trying to be less biased," said [Cass] Burt [coordinator of operations for TUN]. "We believe in the intelligence of our audience to rely on their own judgment and come to their own conclusions."
This new channel seems to fly in the face of the saying, “If you aren’t liberal in your twenties, then you have no heart. And if you aren’t conservative by your forties, then you have no brain.” I guess they are assuming you can have a heart and a brain in college, which I think any doctor, will tell you is possible.
I don’t know if this will make it to our local cable stations or not, but I know I stopped watching MTV long ago. Even if it wasn’t for all the gratuitous sex they inject into all that they touch, they lost their focus. The great thing about MTV was being able to watch music videos and see such great artistic talents. Like the dude that made that A-ha video, now that was cool.
I stopped watching MTV because I couldn’t watch or listen to music on it anymore and it served very little purpose to me. The humor was sophomoric at best and it just wasn’t entertaining. I can’t speak to what they are showing now because I haven’t watched it for quite sometime, but if Newlyweds and The Osbournes are any indication of what they are producing; I’m not missing much.
This article also mentions that MTV has “proudly” worked with Rock the Vote and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). Of course they have no political bias there, especially when they tout programming that includes Jesse Jackson as a celebrity “stand-in” for a professor on one of their reality shows. Which on its surface appears to be balanced, but when you look at statements from Rock the Vote like, “Politicians who aren’t busy denouncing sex in the media, are busy opposing marriage for same-sex couples, even promising to write this bigotry into the U.S. Constitution.” And that’s a “non-partisan organization”?!
I think the most damaging accusation against MTV is that Kurt Loder use to do the news for them and he now works on the Today Show with Katie Couric. I’m not really serious about that last accusation, but she is most definitely not non-partisan.
I just think it’s a great idea to have a clean, balanced alternative to MTV for young people, and I hope the message does not get lost. I know the message can resonate with younger people, as long as they are given the opportunity to listen.
Of course that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Posted by price at July 21, 2004 03:39 PM