MTV remains one of the strongest brands worldwide, but if you were to ask 10 people randomly what MTV stood for, you would get very different answers. I came across a post on MTV’s decline/demise… and I think it speaks volumes about Viacom’s failure to really build on MTV in the 21st century:
Without question, MTV has lost part of the allure that made it so great when people in or around my age group were growing up. I can thank MTV for introducing me to an array of diverse musical acts, from RUN DMC to Guns n Roses to Peter Gabriel to Michael Jackson and NWA. Unlike the current state of affairs, MTV used to be a way to explore new musical genres and be exposed to new artists.
Indeed, MTV is about anything but music. But then again, the music industry is about anything but music these days… this does not mean that music isn’t thriving, it is. It’s just that the metrics that we should measure success by have changed.
What exasperates all of this is that Viacom really failed to position itself for music in the 21st century. Sure, it’s almost a Godsend that it does not own any record labels, but Viacom is increasingly away from the epicenter of music. It’s overnight salvation could have come from MySpace, admittedly, but it lost the Intermix (MySpace’s parent) derby when Fox Interactive Media paid $580M for Intermix which made MySpace fall in Rupert Murdoch’s empire at News Corp.
Oftentimes, in M&A, price is determined by supply and demand and how badly you don’t want something in your opponent’s hands. Judging by MySpace’s stratospheric rise and growth after the sale to News Corp., it is surprising that MySpace “only” fetched $580M…
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