Life of a Storyteller
MTV
2017
MTV is an American cable and satellite television owned by Viacom Media Networks and located One Astor Plaza, Times Square, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. MTV is one of the leading music channel globally that promote music videos and also broadcasts popular up to date music. The channel was first aired in 1981, and the first song to be played was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. MTV Networks has become a symbol of globalization.
MTV has been expanding since 1987 when it opened MTV Europe, owned by Viacom also and it has other channels like VH1 and Nickelodeon. MTV Generates more than $1 billion in revenue outside of the United States. However, the most rapid growth of MTV is in the Asian Continent.
MTV Launched MTV India in 1996, Headquartered in Mumbai, India. MTV India is one of the most famous music channels across the Indian subcontinent, and it has viewership shares in India and also in other countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
MTV India creates shows across genres of music such as Coke Studio, MTV Unplugged, Reality shows like MTV Bakra, MTV Roadies, Splitsvilla, and youth-based sitcoms MTV Reality Stars.
Challenges and Strategies:
MTV had to overcome a lot of challenges before it became a global hit. MTV aired on American programs with English speaking VJs throughout Europe, assuming that Europeans would see and hear about American music, but it didn’t happen. Their taste in music was mainly local except for global pop stars like Madonna and Micheal Jackson. Each country has its own unique and favorite music scenes and songs, people preferred their local songs than adapt to different songs.
MTV failed to understand this core principle. As a result, MTV suffered and started to decline. MTV has had a significant influence on music because it was one of the first music channels around that spoke to an older teen/young adult audience by playing “the now” type of music and if you wanted to keep up to date with music then “MTV” was the place to come.
In 1995, MTV completely changed its strategy by adopted Localization Strategy and Started streaming native music as per the continent. For Instance, in Asia, MTV Network has English and Hindi Channel for India, Mandarine feeds for China and Taiwan, Japanese feeds for Japan, and so on.
What did MTV gain from these strategies?
Between 1996-2000, MTV’s ratings in India were scaled more than 700%.
MTV captured about 70% of its European Advertising Revenue.
MTV has seen a striking increase in MTV viewership across the countries.
MTV currently reaches over 300 million households worldwide. MTV India broadcasts many popular shows TV programs for the audience with different interests. Programs such as MTV Rock On, MTV Rann VJ Run, MTV Breakfast Beats, MTV Rush, MTV Girls Night Out, MTV Gone in 60 Seconds, MTV Hits, and so on.
MTV India has put a greater focus on reality shows such as Coke Studio and MTV Unplugged, which leads the music to a new place. The Show MTV Roadies seems to have eclipsed the entire MTV India with a series of reality shows.
Conclusion:
MTV adopted precise international strategies and controls at the right time to regain its lost popularity, especially in non-English speaking countries like Asia and Europe. The main reason behind MTV’s Localization strategy is to “get inside the head” of the local population and create something that matches their taste and preferences.