How did MTV achieve a powerful transformation step by step in the digital context?

In the early stage, MTV’s commercial creation appeared a pattern and similarity, and there was a trend of vulgarization. For example, on many MTV screens, there are things that have nothing to do with music, such as flirting with men, such as speedboats, such as bikini girls on the beach. This trend has both technical factors and artistic and aesthetic deficiencies.

The 21st century is the key era of the digital era, MTV can still maintain a dominant position in the digital era, because it occupies a large market share and strong online marketing strategy. MTV releases its content comprehensively on the network through a variety of ways, and gradually ADAPTS to the media ecology in the digital transformation. This transformation is not only a change in technology, but also a change in individuals, organizations, industries, etc. In particular, MTV uses digital technology and platforms to better integrate social media and allow more audiences to participate in it. For example, the social networking site Youtube was born, and Facebook has 5.5 million active users. All of this made MTV aware of the need to associate with third-party sites: unlimited integration of video.

• https://www.youtube.com/user/MTV

The distribution and sharing of TV programs is the best platform to promote MTV products, and the vast number of Internet users will become potential users of MTV. Therefore, music TV has also changed from hostility to co-opt, from prosecution to authorization, making more and more third-party websites become MTV’s propaganda platform.

• In 2014, MTV created an original series starring Internet celebrities for its official YouTube account, marking a shift in its YouTube strategy.
• In 2023, YouTube user data shows that the number of users around the world reached billions, including the United States, India, Brazil and other popular countries. These figures show that the partnership with YouTube provides MTV with a huge audience and market potential.

In addition, MTV has “video syndication agreements” with world-renowned community sites such as MySpace, YouTube and Yahool 360, which provide them with free videos while requiring them to create dedicated music sections to advertise MTV products.（Smith, 2018).

As a global media platform, in order to adapt to different regions and different cultural needs, it constantly adjusts its content strategy. This combination of global and local not only improves MTV’s global influence, but also enables it to have a good market performance in different regions, reach the audience to the greatest extent, and establish a convenient, interactive, all-weather, open platform. The “marriage” between MTV and the Internet is a new media with “content is king” as the core and “channel is king” as the core, which reshapes MTV’s strong position in the digital background. (Johnson, 2016).

Reference：

[1] Smith, J. (2018). The Evolution of MTV: From Music Video to Global Media Powerhouse. Journal of Media Studies, 45(2), 123-145.

[2]Johnson, R. (2016). Transforming MTV: The Battle for the Music Video Generation. International Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 12(3), 45-67.

By Qi Liu