Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) — Viacom Inc.’s MTV is counting on Twitter Inc. and Lady Gaga to outdo last year’s Video Music Awards, when viewership surged after rapper Kanye West jumped onstage to interrupt Taylor Swift.
More than 8 million people viewed parts of last year’s show at MTV.com and 2 million tweets were posted on Twitter, many after West disrupted Swift’s acceptance speech, the network said. Posts on Twitter and Facebook Inc. led the show to average 27 million viewers, the most since 2002.
To build on last year, MTV will let viewers of the Sept. 12 show send messages through its site on Twitter and Facebook, and view and post videos after events occur. MTV is looking to harness social media to attract a demographic audience of teens and young adults who don’t want to miss what friends are experiencing.
“We clearly want people to watch the show,” Kristin Frank, senior vice president and general manager of MTV.com, said in an interview. “We also know we have millennial fans. They aren’t just watching TV. They also have laptops and mobile phones in front of them. They demand more and more immersive experiences.”
The importance of an online presence was underscored in August, when Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest record label, pulled videos of its artists from MTV.com. An agreement was reached for the awards show, where Lady Gaga has the most nominations this year. The blackout affects only the website, not videos shown on the MTV channel, the network said.
‘Jersey Shore’
“It’s all about the demo,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG LLC in New York, said in an e-mail. He said in a Sept. 8 note that MTV is drawing viewers to “Jersey Shore” and other shows by incorporating social media as “advertising is rebounding and that will attract investor attention.”
No comments:
Post a Comment