4Music and the death of the prime-time music video

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

For the last month or so I've been mourning the loss of Hits!TV. Since Channel 4 took it over and rebranded it, whenever I've flicked over to see some pop music videos I've been confronted by Shipwrecked: Battle Of The Idiots or some dudes with trendy haircuts talking to each other. There are NO music videos being played at prime time, only during the day (I'm at home right now and am enjoying some classic Nelly Furtado and the new Leona Lewis, hurray).

So that's the last of the freeview video channels to soundtrack the evening's washing up then (TMF never really showed videos except at weekends anyway). It's definitely meant the amount of new pop I digest properly (as opposed to a once-over on Youtube if it enters the charts) has diminished. As has the number of Ultimate Hardcore Party Classics adverts I see - I've missed seeing Cascada's face merge into Basshunter's every ad break. I'm even missing the dreadful list countdowns (Fall Out Boy's top 20 Legends Of Brat-Rock, Worst Boybands '88-'08 etc).

I know WHY they've done this of course. We've got Youtube and newfangled on-demand telly now so Shipwrecked is meant to bring back the viewers (hmmm). Perhaps it's just me? Do you lot even watch music telly at all these days? Did you ever watch it in the first place? If you pay for telly do you bother watching The Box and its ilk? Or would you prefer to watch Miquita Oliver giggling on a sofa for four hours?

Comments

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

To be honest, flicking around the music channels is one of the only places I get to hear new pop music now - I do tend to have a browse up and down Sky's couple of dozen music channels most days.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

In fact, I invented a good music channel flicking game to help pass the time - it's a bit like Play Your Cards Right, except you have to guess whether the next close up on the next channel you get to will be more or less hot than the one you're on now. The hotness must be agreed with the other players.

To be honest you have to be a bit drunk to enjoy it properly, but nothing beats the thrill of guessing that the next one is going to be hotter than Cheryl Cole and scoring a Beyonce or Aguilera.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

A game fraught with peril! What if Adele turned up?

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

Exactly! You've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I feel much more out of touch with what the rest of the country are listening to! e.g. Last year I couldn't understand why they kept A-listing 'The Way I Are' for like six months, and then I suddenly realised that it was because the song was amazing and everyone else knew this already!

Perhaps the charts being v static is partly to blame - fewer new videos making an impact?

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

videos are less impressive now too. labels spend less on them and they tend to be very performance-driven. this sucks but it's our own fault for downloading or something. i guess i am less interested in videos than i was a few years back but obv still want to see images with music and the old format of music tv is still imo the best way of doing this (provided it's done as per my example below!)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

stills from the imminent Ciara video:

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i'm sure that video will be great if you value costume and choreography way above any other elements the medium caters for, as many people do.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

OMG THAT SECOND PICTURE. OW OW OW WRONG. 0_0

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I know right, look at the positioning of her right foot! HOW DOES A HUMAN DO THAT.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I have no idea. My vagina hurts just thinking about it. :/

[sbp.livejournal.com]

The main problem with this is that most of them seem to take their ad breaks at exactly the same time.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I am very irate about this 4Music thing, it just plays B'LOX. There's not ten minutes goes past even when it is playing music that it doesn't have some kind of 'BEST CHEAP VIDEOS WE DUG UP FROM THE VAULT EVER' chart and I watched it for TWO HOURS the other day and not ONCE did it show me the 'Lies' video. The Hits never would have stood for this kind of fvckery.

:(

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

See, as soon as it turned 5pm just now Alexa Chung is in my face promising 'a mixture of celebrity gossip and chat'. NO NO NO WHERE IS MUSIC VIDS PLS :(

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I hate Alexa Chung so much. Why does she still have a job ffs?

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

It's not available on Freeview, but since I've purchased Sky, I've been mightily impressed by MTV Dance. I expected it to play a load of cheesy commercial rubbish, but it actually plays just the right mix of old club classics and good new underground stuff.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Fantasy Music Channel - every day has same schedule:

6am: CURRENT POP VIDEOS
10am: TOP 10 AT 10 (a top 10 from yesteryear - Pat Sharpe commentary available by pressing the red button)
11am: NEW VIDEOS (stuff only just released this week or next)
1pm: 60s/70s
3pm: 80s
5pm: 90s
7pm: 00s
9pm: ARTIST OF THE DAY (10 videos by one artist)
10pm: GENRE OF THE WEEK (you get the idea
11pm: some kind of magazine show ft news, interviews with worthwhile artists from all over the world
12am: repeats of The Chart Show/...Forever/Pop-Up Video/The Best Of MTV Europe/Sifl & Olly
2am: NIGHT BEATS (inc. unofficial videos e.g. new dance tracks over classic animation etc. while people's silly txts flash up on screen)

MAKE IT SO

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

(For srs! I would be glued!)

Re: MAKE IT SO

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i am the Gordon Ramsay of music TV programming. just keep it simple and do it properly. YOU BASTARDS.

playing 10 videos in an hour does seem particularly idealistic tho

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Youtube really killed any interest I had in watching music TV (which I was addicted to back in the day) - why waste time hoping something good will come up (and being disappointed lots of the time) when I can just go watch what I want?

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

youtube = worse quality audio/video (altho the gap is closing, judging by how compressed digital channels continue to get) and nowhere near good enough content filter/retrieval/delivery system. you should be able to say 'play me all videos similar to this' etc. and it does it automatically instead of having to do all the work yourself. apart from that it's obv. great!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

"all the work" = typing in name of act + song into text box??!! and it does have that "similar videos" function down the side.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

yes but you have to know what to look for and youtube isn't very good at that. it needs to be more like last.fm in that respect. i actually want 'programming' based on my preferences and to do as little clicking and typing as possible.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't believe any automated programming, even based on my 'preferences', would be adequate though - I don't trust anything or anyone other than myself to "know" what I want to hear!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

does that mean you don't listen to radio shows either? at least you can look at the playlists before hearing the show now thanks to the internet. such dark days before this...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This is exactly why I don't listen to the radio! That, plus radio presenters all annoy me.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

even Westwood? i thought you listened to some 1xtra stuff tho. i listened to Wiley interview on 1Xtra via youtube the other day and they kept doing Westwood-style explosion sound effects for every second comment Wiley made. yes it was a bit rubbish.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The only 1xtra stuff I've listened to this year = the archived Footloose sets. As mp3s. I check their playlist regularly though and check stuff out based on it. Have hardly ever listened to Westwood at all. I really have 0 desire to hear music interrupted by human voices.

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

The point is that if one is a standard adult consumer of music, then you do have to have somebody else doing the donkey work for you. YouTube is great, but only for stuff you already know about. That's why you need the radio or TV channels. Obviously, this doesn't apply to The Lex, but it does to many other people. Like Kat, I very much relied on The Hits to give me a feel for what was around, and am now somewhat lost...

[koganbot]

I rely on The Lex to give me a feel for what is around.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

I WANT VIDEOS ON THE TELLY BACK!

4Music Wikipedia nonsense

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

http://base58.com/ilx/4musiclol.gif

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

I remember when TMF started they used to play videos in the evening but now the Hits have gone exactly the same way (I suppose MTV went like this as well?)...Videos are for people dossing around at home during daytime whereas ppl coming in from work need switch your brains off entertainment (or that's how they define it -- you could say music vids are the same thing but maybe its the nature of the music video that its easy to slip in and out and NOT stay a list show, unlike a structured programme where ppl can follow? which is what advertisers may prefer but this is only guessing, maybe one of our market researchers can shed light ;-)).

Hopefully in a few months they'll get bored of parading E4 presenters and go back to video lists but I doubt it.

The Hits was made up of loads of old music videos so it was a bit of an EDUCATION as I'm a casual pop listener. Which means it was nice but I don't miss it.