Looks like MTV is back in the music video business. After a steady abandonment of the very form it created, in recent years it has looked as though MTV had officially ceded the music video future to YouTube. But in November it was announced that MTV was not only not quitting music videos, but that they were going to start creating them.

With LCD Soundsystem’s “Pow Pow” video—a big budget spectacle starring Anna Kendrick and funded by MTV—the network that killed the radio star has opted back in to the business of making video stars, in a more direct way than ever.

[Watch the first music video to air on MTV: "Video Killed the Radio Star"]

New York Magazine has an interesting summary of the venture: "It’s the kind of music video you have to watch more than once to really understand, the kind of esoteric, expensive-looking clip you used to see all the time on MTV but haven’t in years. Now, though, the network hopes to bring back the ambitious music video—and since the record companies aren’t paying for them anymore, MTV is going to finance them itself."

One of the things that interests me about this news is that it represents the broader trend in the world of distribution toward content production rather than just content providing. In a world where distribution platforms are relatively cheap, easy and a dime a dozen, the question is not so much one of how to get content to audiences as much as whether there’s enough content to fill the unlimited channels that exist.  Thus, the emphasis is on creating enough content—and enough good content—to keep people active on your platform. It’s one thing for Hulu to exist. It’s another for it to have enough attractive, exclusive content to keep people coming back. Distribution companies have vested interest in both quantity and quality of content; their brand reputation and relationship with consumers depends on it.

Back in the 80s, MTV started mainly as a middle-man distribution platform—where record companies could get their artists’ music in front of the eyes, via cool and colorful videos, of huge numbers of consumer teenagers. As MTV’s popularity grew, and with it the popularity of the music video form, the network realized the power of niche content for advertising revenue. With an edgy reputation and a corner on a very specific youth market, MTV began creating original, non-music programming (e.g., The Real World; Beavis and Butthead), which proved even more popular than videos. They were no longer MTV the platform for the other companies’ content; they were MTV the content-producing brand.

It’s a classic monopolistic move in the entertainment industry: Why control only distribution if you can vertically integrate and control production and distribution both? More control almost always means more money.

Over time, MTV original content crowded out pretty much everything else, and music was mostly replaced by shows about snobby teen girls and product placement run amuk. It was simple economics. A schedule packed with reality shows attracted more eyeballs than one packed with music videos. But what happened after the debut of YouTube? Music video distribution got a new, non-MTV shot in the arm. Suddenly artists—even indie, little-known artists who would never have been played on MTV anyway—had a free platform to showcase their work to millions of people. And the music video became popular again. Lady Gaga’s eye-grabbing videos now rack up hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, and MTV wants back in the game.

[Read Inc. magazine's 2010 article, "The Future of Music Videos"]

So, what does MTV have to offer? Taste? No, not really. MTV lost its reputation as tastemaker during the TRL-era. Are they a trusted source for introducing the world to great new artists? Not anymore. That mantle has passed to music bloggers and e-zines like Paste and Pitchfork.

MTV will likely be making music videos that reflect exactly what they’ve become: A conglomerate-era corporate brand with big pockets, advertising power and star-making potential. The music video has always been a hybrid form, but the types of videos MTV will produce will be even more so. They will combine song, celebrity, spectacle, and cross promotion in efforts to produce “supervideos” like only MTV can. Or at least that’s what they should be doing.

What will engender MTV to the music-loving community once again? Perhaps a willingness to play patron to lesser known artists like LCD Soundsystem, who could never compete with Gaga-levels of video spectacle or star power on their own. MTV has the goods to be a philanthropic folk hero of the music video renaissance. And in the goodwill gift economy, where brand viability often hinges on brand generosity and experience marketing, being a philanthropic folk hero isn't a bad thing to be.

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Are music videos both the past and future of music media? Where do you go to discover new music?

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