• Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, April 29, 2009 9:45 AM

In an effort to come up with a pop culture concept that could spawn a new hit franchise, MTV is experimenting with "$5 Cover," a TV and Web series about the Memphis music scene. The series uses real musicians in virtually all the acting roles and is orchestrated by Craig Brewer, writer-director of the film "Hustle & Flow."

The show launches Friday at midnight on MTV's cable channel and on its site, fivedollarcover.com. It seeks to exploit new-media storytelling, combining the narcissism of reality TV with the raw edges of indie cinema. The main Web component of the series offers 15 digital episodes, only loosely chronological, that follow the romantic entanglements and careers of a group of Memphis musicians. MTV will air a half-hour packaged TV version of three episodes each week during a five-week run on the network.

From MTV's point of view, Memphis is the first stop on a continuing musical and cultural odyssey of different cities, first in America, and eventually in Europe and Latin America. "Local is the new global," says Brewer, "It's really satisfying for an artist to be part of a local community, [at the same time] thanks to the Web, people all over the world have a chance to see what you're doing."

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