Haydain Neale, 1970–2009
Transit City and Transit Cities
Peeve Patrol
Newsstand: November 23, 2009
The Making of a Medley
Torontoist had heard for a while that MTV Canada's arrival was fast approaching which got us thinking about what MTV’s presence will mean for Canada’s own MuchMusic. Apparently, CTV is required to operate this station under a Talk TV license; therefore, more lifestyle programming and little focus on actual music and videos. So it would appear Much will keep its core audience and the two networks will have little to battle over. Right? Well, who knows? The impression Torontoist gets from watching MTV’s current “The drought is over” marketing campaign currently running on television is that they’re certainly looking to sway loyal Much viewers and are up for a bit of a fight.
Torontoist is sure that like most people of my generation the shaping of my adolescence is in large part due to MuchMusic. Those VJ crushes, new bands and sounds over the years that inspired new ideas, these are the things Torontoist happily remembers. We aspired to be punk, mod and prep while watching The Sex Pistols, Siouxsie Sue and New Order. Erica Ehm was the coolest girl on TV and Bill Welychka (pictured), long hair or short, he was the guy for me.
Since going to air in August 1984 much has changed at Much. VJs have come and gone, music is so many different things now, the format evolved and most recently a strong push on digital technologies which promises to be the real battle between the networks.
If MTV’s former success and slick new marketing is anything to believe, lets not forget their infinite budget, Torontoist is sure Much is definitely in for a good bruising. But we're not convinced MTV is for me, we have no connection to it. We haven’t been friends these last 22 years like Much and I have. No, Torontoist would rather stick with Canada’s original music station. We don’t want our MTV.
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in the past year or so, muchmusic has undergone a total transformation, and the result is that they've adopted pretty much EVERYTHING i've always hated about mtv. at least mtv doesn't pretend they're all about the music anymore, whereas much seems to think they're actually STILL contributing to the canadian musical landscape in some profound way! get off it. your best show USED to be the wedge (you know, before it was slotted for like 2am on the first wednesday of every month)...now i can't bear to watch anything besides the mass-musician-slaggery that is video on trial. and hey, i'd rather look at mtv's vjs than have to watch devon cockily strut around with that uber-metrosexual coif for one more minute, or have to take in leah's shit-eating grin and slutty schoolgirl antics. i say bring on the mtv, because much just isn't worth defending anymore.
Hey I grew up with all the old crew too... but honestly, when was the last time you watched that station? It's all full of contests to win tickets to free events, with forms designed to get marketing information out of kids. Just try and watch music videos on much MUSIC... text messages crawling across the screen, or online polls to the next favorite video to be shown... Sorry even someone with attention deficit disorder couldn’t keep up with all that crap all over it. The VJ's are horrible (don’t get me started), I don't get to see videos unmolested, and the station is just a marketing machine... I welcome MTV! P.S. Much music is in the middle of queen Street and has access to some of the best music acts in the world, playing at all the clubs and bars around them, and what do they play? Garbage. Make a live show for bands that actually can sing, play their instruments, and have put in the time. I know much won’t but on the other hand maybe MTV will do it.
Candice, your coments about the VJ's were so funny! I SO agree!
They don't really play music on Much anymore, except Rap City. I mean, VideoFlow used to be HOURS, now, it's like, an hour and half. If you want to watch videos, watch MuchMoreMusic.
The VJ's are total bubbleheads. Are the majority of Much viewers(teenagers) stupid, and so they go for VJ's in that demographic, or do the Stupid VJ's produce a generation of ever more moronic teenagers, in a slow and unabated death spiral? Or am I just getting old and crotchety?
MTV? Wasn't there already an MTV Canada? On Toronto One, they used to play it. It sucked worse than MUCH.
Put down the remote, and go see some live music.
I agree that Much is a money grabbing machine but what corporation isn't these days? They have a market to protect and despite their giving in to the pressures I still feel they've kept things uniquely Canadian and there is a need for keeping things current and valid! Covering everything from celebrity news, fashion and popular culture. I think Canadians care about all of these things too. Maybe I'm mistaken?
I have been watching. I watch it everyday because they are strong supporters of the Canadian music scene! If you watched it you'd recognise that as well. The Wedge is still on, albeit late on a Friday night but I make the effort to watch because these are the artists I am mostly interested in listening to. But those same artists do get a bit of airplay during regular teen time-slots. The NewMusic on Monday nights is also very well researched and smart! The best quote I've heard about the VJs is that they're real people that you get a sense they have families, friends. Anything MTV has ever offered are squeaky clean robots. Do I want to feed that machine? Nope.
Much has kept it real for me. And if everyone decides to turn their backs on them, what choice do you leave MuchMusic? They will conform to the MTV way. So goodbye Canada. Hello corporate America?
Much needs a good kick in the ass and hopefully MTV will do it. I never got to Much when I was younger, we couldn't get cable in rural Ontario. But I felt it's influence back then as more and more communities got cable and found whole families watching Much. Imagine that, Much use to appeal to teens and adults alike!
Now Much strives to reach the same audience as Dose, a generation that for whatever reason seems to not want to strain themselves having to actually think about things and are quite content being spoon fed short bits of incomplete information.
Much hasn't been about the music for a long time and it continues getting worse. I don't know where they went wrong, but this most recent group of VJs seem like Mose replaced their brains with little automated robots with really bad AI.
It's too bad really, because I love what Much could be. Hopefully MTV makes them strive to be better rather than be a copycat.
I wish Much was more like The New Music. That show is keeping up its long tradition of solid music journalism. It stands out from Much's regular vacuous programming.
But I must say that Fraser Young on Video On Trial is hilarious.
Unless I somehow managed to miss the Monika Deol Epistemology of the Mind-Body Duality Hour every week after Beavis and Butt-Head and that spotlight on Loverboy, I'd have to say that rumors of MuchMusic's intellectual decline are overrated.
And if you never owned a Frozen Ghost cassette, you really don't remember how bad MuchMusic's video inventory has ALWAYS been. Go ahead and mythologize all you want, but if you're not reminiscing fondly about the station that thought Billy Idol's cover of "Mony Mony" was a lot more significant than Eric's Trip had ever been, you're not remembering MuchMusic.
Say what you will about the quality of videos they show, at least they used to show videos. It's been nearly 3 years since I stopped getting cable. For a while I really missed Much, because it was actually pretty hard to find current music videos online. With a few visits home now and then, I can see I'm not missing anything. I used to love the Wedge and R U Receiving? but now it's all MTV shows and MTV-like 'original' programming with a few hip hop and pop princess and poseur punk vids in between.
Much Music, RIP.
Of COurse MTV Sucks, but so does Much Music. Fuck it, Dude, lets go bowling.
Whoa now. Much VJs past and present have always been vapid bubbleheads, *especially* Erica Ehm and Bill Welychka.
Must take issue with praise of Erica Ehm. She was often woefully uninformed about music and other matters, and the results were sometimes cringeworthy. I distinctly remember her interviewing the Neville Brothers (say this for the old Much -- they'd talk to a wide variety of musicians) and they were talking up their then-current single, "Fly Like An Eagle." They covered the old Steve Miller song, they said, because it reminded them of Jesse Owens. A look of confusion passed over her face and she said, "And he was?"
Oh, I agree, Most of them were bubbleheads. I recall KCC being occasionally insightful, and Christoher Hutchens...remember, I'm old. But at least they actually showed music videos. Now, they show me why Nickleback we're "born to be"(what? Awful?), and how moronic VJ's would fix someones room up. WTF?
"squeaky clean robots": You think the VJ's on there now have a personality? If we could harness the collective electricity of all of the personality at Much right now...we could toast some bread.
Lightly.
Never said it was perfect. Yes, FAR from being perfect. Do I want Much to purge all of this nonsense fluff they call entertainment and get back to roots and the music. Absolutely. But money talks and they've done nothing more than give the kids what they want. Whether you respect that or not is up to you. Its a gamble for me but in this crazy world of marketing they've done alright.
The VJs aren't great. Most of them annoy me too. But I can tell for a few of them it really is about the music and that's something I can respect. The worst thing they could have done is let go of George S. I hope they hold onto Hannah Sung for a while longer.
The content on MTV canada and Much will be COMPLETELY different and so not even on the same level. CTV still has to maintain it's CanCon requirements and they don't have a music station license so I don't feel like there will be too much toe stepping.
However, considering that the creative peoples at CTV are good at using their dollars, I do think that Much may have to haul a bit of ass to step up their own entertainment programming.
But also consider that CHUM owned the license to MTV Canada after they bought out Craig Media and then they *paid* for MTV to take it back. (to the tune of $10mil i believe). If they really thought it was a threat to the integrity of MM they wouldn't have done that.
"Say what you will about the quality of videos they show, at least they used to show videos."
According to the schedule grid at muchmusic.com, you appear to be longing for the halcyon days of one o'clock this afternoon.
Paige, I don't think Chum had much of a choice, MTV being a threat to MM or not. Apparently in the original contract with Craig Media, MTV had the right to take back the licence after a change of ownership. The $10M was the outstanding fees owed to MTV for the remainder of the contract.
my friends and i have moaned for several years now that all we really want is a video flow channel, and this post string confirms we're far from alone. really, just videos - forget the vjs - and commercials, of course. i would have thought that this format (which would have production costs hovering around....say...zero)would be appealing some provider, but perhaps it'll come around once the pay-per-channel digital format becomes standard (they already have those Galaxie "radio" channels on rogers with nothing but music).
Shit. I don't even have cable!
Go outside. Who cares?
This is such crap. I want the REAL MTV, with all its terrible/great reality shows, not some terrible Canadian approximation. Besides which, there already WAS an MTV Canada, starting in 2001 -- I had it as one of my digital channels for years -- until it turned into RAZR or whatever the hell and stopped airing "Made."
Bottom line: I hate the CRTC. I want American cable channels.
Matt Babel deserves a punch in the face!
"my friends and i have moaned for several years now that all we really want is a video flow channel"
Got Rogers digital or ExpressVu, chris? Both of them carry at least four video flow channels. (Maybe more, I didn't look very hard.)
muchmusic:
souldecision
shawn desman
massari
b4-4
theory of a deadman
keisha chante
lillix
choclair
our lady peace
yeah, really serving the point of promoting canadian music. Even when people started really paying a lot of attention (internationally even) to the arcade fire at CMJ (sept. 2004), MM only got around to acknowledging their talent the next May. they were played on MTVu on campuses all over the US months before MM grew a set and gambled on giving them airtime. Sad when more people at Alabama St. know of our dearth of talented artists than our own citizenry does.
And for this they get their precious license protected from competition? MM and CHUM as a whole are both jokes, any attempts to diversify themselves from the cluttered mass are made redundent with every airing of Pimp my Ride or Newlyweds.
I wouldn't be surprised to see CTV challenge Much Music's sole "right" to be Canada's music only music video voice. CRTC rules are often challenged and succesfully (witness CBC Newsworld vs. CTV Newsnet). However, I'd imagine they will wait a bit first to prove themselves worthy of a license change.
For the record, I subscribe to a lot of cable channels, but dropped all the Much-channels a year back and haven't missed them a bit. I'm relatively hip, in my early 30s and can't find any music I like on any of them so what's the point.
I really wish CBC-Television would stop going off the air after ZED-TV and just air good videos all night long. Why not even call it "Brave News TV Waves"? It could be DJ-less and would hardly cost them anything. Honestly, I think I'm on to something.
that's a good idea, Jason... you should send a letter to the CBC. they could start every night of videos by playing Joel Plaskett's "True Patriot Love" at 3 am...