Reactionary

This is what I’m sending this dastardly company tomorrow. I rarely buy stamps nowadays because of e-mail, but this is worth stamps and paper and toner and envelopes. I can’t get over how horrid the coverage was.

July 5, 2005

Viacom
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
(212) 258-6000

To whom it may concern,

I wish to express my disgust at MTV/ VH-1’s woeful coverage of the recent Live 8 event. As self-described music and video channels, it was their right and duty to cover the shows as their primary concern on the day. Instead, the main broadcast occurred on Saturday for only about half the day. With 10 nearly simultaneous concerts being played all over the world that very same day, one would think the so-called music channels would have a field day and make a weekend of it. Instead, it was treated like obligatory homework and a shoddy job done at that. When the sun started going down on the eastern seaboard, the biggest thing to happen in music all year was pushed aside for those moronic reality TV shows that have sprouted up like dandelions. But the existence and quality of those shows is another issue altogether. What is at issue here is how Live 8 coverage was so spotty and short-lived and this other programming (which at best is secondary to music) was marched out promptly and no attempt was made to show more of the concerts.

What was shown was also of abysmal quality. VJs were poorly informed and insisted on commenting on how awesome it all was without showing us what exactly was awesome. A song would be cut off just to show some vacuous VJ with a microphone fawn over the fantasticness of the day as he spoke over the act performing in the distance at the time. Songs and bands would be introduced but then the focus would be torn away to go to commercial break. I feel like there were more commercials and idiotic commentary than actual performances. It was appalling.

The few performances that were actually shown in their entirety were repeated more than once as if there wasn’t more to show! With 10 concerts occurring across the world, there was more than enough footage to fill several days worth of broadcasting. Why all the repeats? Equally disturbing was how both MTV and VH-1 showed the exact same coverage. Why wasn’t one given one lineup to cover and the other channel another? There was more than enough material to go around.

Disastrous work by all involved and no, watching the little video online at AOL doesn’t cut it. It should have been on television and given the focus and attention it deserved. Live 8 was treated as a footnote rather than the astounding event it really was. At minimum, a name change is in order for MTV and VH-1 because the last thing the focus was on was music.

Sincerely,

Me

Posted on July 4th, 2005 under Life, News, Tunes •  Print •  Email • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed