This Year’s VMAs Will Surround You Until You Cry “Akon”

noah | August 30, 2007 10:37 am
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So remember all that hoopla about this year’s Video Music Awards not being rerun, like it has been in previous years, thus forcing that sliver of the populace who still cares about music to turn in for a one-time-only viewing on Sept. 9? Yeah, well, that’s a marketing hook that’s only technically true, thanks to the whole “user-generated content” idea being so in vogue these days.

Online components include the creation of a virtual world based around the show as well as an initiative dubbed “The Viewer’s Choice,” which will use the votes of online users to determine which favorite moments and performances will be featured in later broadcasts set for Sept. 11, Sept. 13 and Sept. 15.

“This year, no matter where they turn — on television, online, on demand or wireless — viewers are surrounded by a completely fresh interactive VMA experience that will redefine the awards show,” MTV president Christina Norman said.

So see, the whole show won’t be reaired–which is probably a good thing, given the high probability of inappropriate drunken moments that’ll be sliced to ribbons by MTV’s standards and practices department–and what you’ll get instead is probably going to be an even more incoherent-than-usual clip show with lesser performances (you know, the ones by the non-hotties) relegated to the spaces between ringtone ads. But it’s not technically a rerun, and it’s interactive because it uses cell phones, see? Boy do I miss the days when companies actually tried to make things interesting, instead of just attaching an e-mail address/a Web site/a short code/widgetry to a tired trope in the hopes of giving it a coat of “interactive” lipstick.

MTV mobilizes to cover VMAs [Hollywood Reporter]