Music TV battles to survive in Internet age | Entertainment | Entertainment News | Reuters.co.uk
Music TV battles to survive in Internet age | Entertainment | Entertainment News | Reuters.co.uk
Music TV battles to survive in Internet age
Fri Jul 28, 2006 2:22 PM BST167
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By Mike Collett-White
LONDON (Reuters) - Music television is the endangered species of the pop world, and is learning the hard way that it must adapt to the Internet age, or die.
“Top of the Pops”, the world’s longest running weekly music show, will be declared extinct on Sunday when it is broadcast for the last time on BBC.
Two days later MTV, one reason for the demise of Top of the Pops and at the cutting edge of music for so long, begins to reinvent itself with a new interactive TV channel and Web site that will target the online social networking craze.
Young, Internet-literate listeners are not prepared to wait for a weekly digest of chart acts, and the pre-selected programming of 24-hour music channels is also losing its appeal in an age where music choice is greater than ever.
Television must compete with Robbie Williams beaming live images from a concert to fans’ mobile phones and iPods playing downloaded tracks.
“I’m afraid to say that Top of the Pops won’t get that audience any more,” said Dylan White, director of Anglo Plugging which promotes bands to TV producers, referring to people aged between 16 and 30.
“They are eagerly downloading and getting their information far quicker and with a more focussed style than sitting there waiting for a programme to come around once a week on TV,” he told Reuters.
White believes that the 42-year-old Top of the Pops can be saved for pre- and early teenagers, but its makers have made clear they do not share his confidence.