Commentary

Just An Online Minute... MTV's VMA Webcast

Taking a page from the book America Online wrote with its Live 8 coverage this summer, MTV this week streamed its Video Music Awards show live, and also made it available on the Web on demand.

While the idea was good, its execution left a lot to be desired. The live streams performed poorly on Sunday night; the Minute's attempt to view them were met with error messages. The on-demand streams were an improvement, but still took a long time to load and the video was choppy at best. On more than one occasion in a single track, the video image froze while the sound kept playing.

Granted, it's possible that part of the problem lies with the Minute's home computer or cable modem connection. But the same PC and broadband had no problems accessing AOL's Live 8 streams -- either live or on demand.

Unlike AOL, MTV also censored its Web offerings; if the network hit the mute button on television, it likewise expurgated the Internet segments, to the detriment of the content. Viewing "live" performances that suddenly lose sound is so distracting that the Minute spent more time wondering what MTV was thinking than watching the clip. Maybe the network simply wished to avoid controversy. But AOL managed to post entire performances live, profanity and all, without any fuss.

Of course, AOL had a lot more riding on the success of its Live 8 streams than MTV. AOL had publicly made Live 8 the centerpiece of its new portal. The feature had to work near perfectly, if only to avoid a backlash in the press.

MTV, on the other hand, can plausibly claim that the Internet component of the awards show was just an add-on, giving extra value to both visitors and advertisers, but not meant to replace its TV coverage. Until that attitude changes and the Internet experience becomes as important as the television broadcast, TV networks that happen to have an Internet channel will lose ground online to Internet companies like AOL.

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