First, there were the video awards, then the movie awards, and now, MTV is kicking off its first-ever awards show that focuses on digital music and social media.
As part of its ongoing push toward the digital realm, MTV is adding a new awards show to its stable of events. Although it is not fully sketched out yet, Dermot McCormack, executive vice president of digital media, MTV Networks Music & Logo Group, tells us that the show — which has yet to be named — will take place in the spring of 2011.
And, here’s the clincher: It will be online-only. “This will be the opposite of a TV awards show,” McCormack says. “Social conversation will be the centerpiece.”
According to McCormack, media has moved into a multi-screen world, therefore, the show should be able to be accessed on all of these screens — especially since it deals with the digital and social media world much more than it does the world of traditional media.
While McCormack and Co. don’t have any specific awards mapped out yet, categories could include “best music app,” as well as awards for monumental moments in social media (think Kanye West’s tweets).
Awards will be doled out mostly based on the whims of the audience, with a few selected by MTV itself, and audience participation will be a big part of the process all around.
MTV learned a lot of lessons about fan interaction from its search for the first TJ (Twitter Jockey), a web show that relied on participation via social media in order to function.
Those lessons will be applied to the shaping of the show. “There’s a lot of constraints on TV,” McCormack says. “Digital, as a storytelling medium, has fewer constraints. We will look to innovate around how to take advantage of the tools the web offers.”
You can probably expect interactive touches like the Captionbomb game MTV launched around the Skins premiere, which lets fans chat and check in during the show.
At this juncture, it’s undeniable that the music scene has changed in accordance with the digital world: The way we find music, how we interact with that music, how we share tunes, etc., have all been affected by the advent of social media and flourishing technologies. Therefore, MTV is striving to recast the way it looks at musical achievements.
“The digital music world needs a new MTV,” McCormack says, “And we would like to apply for that job.”
