• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 13, 2009

Media agencies normally just buy media. Interpublic's Mediabrands is making some. The media management division of one of the world's largest agency holding companies today launched MBTV, a new business-to-business channel created to promote and educate key stakeholders about news, trends and opinions about the media business.

The channel, which is being distributed online via a new Mediabrands Web site, also launching today, will primarily feature conversations between executives of Mediabrands' agencies, industry experts and visionaries. The first edition posted today, features an introduction by Mediabrands CEO Nick Brien, and an interview of this reporter by Magna President Elizabeth Herbst-Brady.

"As we push our entire global force to be more innovative in communication approaches, MBTV has been launched to intrigue and keep our organization curious and engaged in conversations about a variety of high-level marketing topics," Mediabrands says in an internal announcement being distributed throughout Interpublic's global organization today.

"The videos on MBTV will help enhance the human element of our global organization, provide more context to pertinent marketplace topics, introduce varied viewpoints and ultimately encourage collaboration across all regions," it continued. "The collection of videos will not be U.S. centric; rather MBTV will host videos from any region in any part of the world."

Mediabrands, which oversees Magna, and media agencies such as Initiative and Universal McCann, said it is embracing digital media for its own internal and B-to-B communications for the same reasons it is championing it for its clients. Other elements of digital content available via the new site include: mobile downloads, audio used for podcasts, press and news stories, upcoming presentations, much of which will also be displayed in digital out-of-home locations via monitors in Interpublic's worldwide offices.

The site also is a portal into the discrete online destinations of individual Mediabrands brands, including the Emerging Media Lab's blog, and various reports, white papers, studies and databases.