MTV's coverage of Live8 was abominable. I knew something was wrong when I checked both VH-1 and MTV, both of which were airing Live8, and found that they were both showing the same footage. Um, hello? There's 10 countries and 100 artists involved in this event. You don't think maybe you could have had MTV show, say, the most popular acts from this side of the Atlantic and VH-1 cover everything happening in Europe? (And yes, I'm disregarding the fact that non-US and non-European nations took part in this. Just go with me on this, okay?) Why not take advantage of your multitude of channels (we get not only MTV and VH-1 (I'm pretty sure everyone who gets one gets the other,) MTV2, and on the digital channels we also get MTV-Hits and VH-1 Classic)? Why not utilize ALL of those to maximize the coverage? It's not like it would hurt any of those channels' profits to follow this for 10 hours.
But that's not all - MTV just couldn't air a complete performance. No, they had to interrupt with commercials, and if it wasn't commercials, it was their inane hosts that interrupted both with voiceovers and cutaways. I'm really glad I wasn't around when the reunited Pink Floyd took the stage, as MTV decided to pull the same crap over them. It's one thing to interrupt, say, the Black Eyed Peas' performance but another entirely to interrupt what is likely the biggest reunion rock will ever witness (the Beatles and the Who being impossible to reunite in their most famous forms.) Not that it comes as a surprise to anyone, but music is about as far from MTV's mind as is possible.
It's probably pretty easy to see why they did this: so they can sell it later on. Not only that, but AOL users who subscribed to the coverage got preferential treatment and saw the show unedited, or some approximation thereof, from what I read (update: AOL is offering free streams of the entire day's performances for the next six weeks. I stand corrected and, for once, actually applaud AOL.) I can understand that, I guess, although I do think there's something distinctly disgusting about this giant human-suffering relief effort being used to excessively profit the broadcasters. But it's pretty obvious that how MTV/et al. and, later, ABC's two-hour edit was intended solely to be able to repackage the event and sell it on CD and DVD later. What's worse, we'll likely get only one performance from each act, as is usually the case, which means that only a very, very few of the people who tuned in actually got to see the historic Pink Floyd reunion. It's as if MTV wasn't even aware that Roger Waters had pretty much spat upon any suggestion that the band would reunite someday, that this was one of those things that people said could very well never happen. And then it did, but from the way the coverage was handled, it was as if Pink Floyd were an everyday band that toured year in and year out, had never done anything of particular signficance, and was just "there." It was three songs, MTV, couldn't you have handled 20 minutes without interrupting the music?
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Article comments
1 - Michael
Actually, Aol made their streaming concerts free to all yesterday. Anyone who went to the aolmusic site that they kept advertising could access the streaming concerts for free on the actual day of the shows... now that it is over aol subscribers are the only ones with access, though.
2 - Aaman
I'm glad I'm one - I wish I could skip to a specific artist in the long feed, though - bit of a pain to have to leave it playing until whatever comes up.
3 - DJRadiohead
I am glad someone else is as pissed about that as I am, Tom.
Did you happen to catch the 'highlight' show on ABC later? They did the same damned thing! They played all of Brad Pitt's over-rehearsed, insincere, emptyheaded speech but cut off Pink Floyd during "Money."
Did everyone in America miss the memo? Pink Floyd's reunion was THE EVENT of the day! Twice it got arsed up by network twits. Unreal.
4 - olly
For once i have to give praise to the BBC who, almost without exception, showed the full sets of all artists at the London gig...
5 - noshek
Yeah, you fooled me again. I tuned to your channel for the first time in 15 years to watch the Live 8 broadcast, but I forgot that you really don't "show"/play music/videos anymore. Next time I watch MTV there will have to be some headline news story indicating that you went back to your 1980-1986 format. Peace out...
6 - Temple Stark
I would have hurt my TV. Luckily I decided to opt out of watching entirely and just buy the DVD of some kind (assuming some of the sales of that will go to a charity.)
ITunes had some free tracks right off the bat as well. From the London show. I think they're still free ...
7 - Don H
MTV sucks. They interupted performances with either commercials - and worse, the most idiotic host/mc's I've witnessed at a major event.
Also, most of the new bands suck. The music industry will not get another penny from me. P2P is new boss...
8 - wee
It was actually 4 songs: Breathe, Money, Wish You Were Here, Comfortably Numb.
So if you only got 3 songs, they really did screw up big time!
9 - SphinxMontreal
I Don't Want My MTV
Why is everyone complaining about the MTV coverage for Live 8? If they had a done an adequate job and shown everything in its entirety, would you go out and buy the overpriced DVD or would you rather be satisfied with a free recording of it?
This is their thinking. Fuck the viewer-sheep! Throw them a half ass incomplete concert jam packed with the same shitty commercials. Due to high ratings and interest, we'll make a fortune on both the advertising time and the DVD sales (double banging).
And one more thing: to hype it up, let's have our media lap dogs call it the "greatest concert ever", when in reality it was mostly a bunch of self-serving crap. And who said fundraising is not a lucrative business?
Rock on!
10 - Ryan
good work
11 - Bob
The MTV coverage was SOOOO poor and frustrating that not only will I not donate money or raise my awareness, I intend to decrease my awareness. I plan to petition my leaders to raise the interest rates on the loans!
12 - Tom Johnson
I intend to decrease my awareness.
Bob, that might be the funniest thing I see all day.
13 - DJRadiohead
I do not want to decrease my awareness (although that line cracked me up) - I just want back the hours of my life I wasted watching the abysmal coverage and (at times) abysmal music.
14 - Tan The Man
When I read the performance times for the band, I was outraged that it was only 4 minutes. I'm glad it was longer.
15 - Aaron
Well first off, and no shit, the Floyd mini-concert was *very possibly* the best thing to ever air on MTV...
Luckily I was using the AOL stream at the same time I was watching Pink Floyd on television...I knew MTV would screw things up eventually. I'll actually give them credit for running three songs uninterrupted (especially when MTV faves were playing live in Philly) but why they decided to cut out during a song featuring perhaps the best guitar solo ever was a mystery. They couldn't wait another two damn minutes? What a buzzkill.
If anyone really f'ed up it was ABC. A two-hour prime time special and they show one Pink Floyd song...and even cut out on it! Nice job assholes. MTV outdid you.
16 - Joel
There were backup musicians, and 1 backup singer. They're very evident in the video, as well as the audio. Why say that there were none?
17 - Tom Johnson
Lighten up, Joel, so I missed the ONE backup singer (I did point out that there were backup musicians.) Have you not seen the legion of musicians that Pink Floyd toured with in the late 80s and 90s? This WAS a stripped down Floyd.
18 - Colin
I'm pretty sure there was another guitarist besides gilmore as well. Not that it takes aways from the awesomeness!! It was pretty touching. So did Waters not sing on most of the songs because his voice has gone bad or what?
19 - El Bicho
Waters sang his parts and Gilmore sang his. It was just the song selection.
20 - JR
Actually Waters got an extra part in "Wish You Were Here"; I don't think he sang at all on the original.
21 - Tom Johnson
I stated in this post that Floyd played with extra musicians - but the bare minimum, not the big-band sized ensemble that normally tours as Pink Floyd. And I quote: "Nick Mason, Richard Wright, and David Gilmore were joined by Roger Waters and only a couple of other musicians necessary to render the music." I counted one extra guitarist (Snowy White - practically a member of the band anyway,) one vocalist, and one extra keyboardist (maybe two - not sure,) not to mention the sax player (I believe that was THE Dick Parry, who played on Dark Side of the Moon.) They usually have double that amount on tour. This was as stripped-down as Floyd gets.