A friend watching Live 8 at home on TV just IMed me to say that MTV's coverage has been terrible. I only have access to AOL's video feed here in Philly, but he says they're only showing excerpts of the already all-too-brief sets, and are padding out their coverege with tons of interviews. If you're at home watching, weigh in - how do you feel about the coverage you're watching? What are they doing wrong, and what are they doing right?
How's your Live 8 TV coverage?
Reader Comments
(Page 3)42. Amazing, Pink Floyd plays together for the first time in forever and the stupid announcers have to cut in on Comfortably Numb. How could that be allowed ???!?!
Posted at 6:47PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by plague beast
43. Thank you AOL!! MTV doesn't kave a clue! Pink Floyd cut off during "comfortably numb". It was a disgrace. Good bye MTV. Hello AOL.
Posted at 7:02PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by schliewe@comcast.net
44. Gillian,
What I meant was, many of us DO know that what we get here is shite. That's why I read The Guardian online.
What makes you think we don't know that what we get is abridged and filtered? Also, what makes you think the BBC news isn't politicaqlly influenced andf motivated? What about the Tory-graph?
:-)
Alas, the AOL streaming isn't working for me, no matter what browser I use, even if I use AOL itself. Grrr....
Posted at 6:51PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by Mark Rabinowitz
45. I agree, MTV's coverage has been infuriating. I cannot believe they cut to the VJ's in the middle of Pink Floyd to hear them say "Oh my God, we're watching Pink Floyd, blah, blah, blah." Please just play the concert and cut out the babbling VJ's, interviewing the crowd, etc. Yes, we know we need to see some info about the cause, but how about saving that for in between songs. Right now, I'm listening to the VJs babbble while Stevie Wonder plays Superstition in the background. "We're listening to the awesome icon Stevie Wonder, who ranks up there with james Brown and Miles Davis." You may be listening to him, but we're not......isn't this a concert? Perhaps that's the problem. We mistakenly thought this was a concert, and it's not.
Posted at 6:10PM on Jul 3rd 2005 by Juli Inhofer
46. MTV SUCKS TODAY-what a waste !!!! :( RIP OFF
Posted at 3:20PM on Jul 4th 2005 by nickai_22
47. UnbelIEVable! MTV plays interviews and Destiny's Child instead of the huge "Hey Jude" marathon in England... my God!
Posted at 7:00PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by Chris Evans
48. Mark
Sorry if i offended. I live in Northern Ireland and see all too well when on mainland Uk ref reportage on NI that BBC is far from the independant media we all want but even so the BBC have been completely XXXXXX by Geldof as this was meant to be over at 8.45 and it's now 11.55 so they have bowed to public opinion and viewing figures. Couldn't happen USA.
Posted at 7:13PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by gillian Campbell
49. America knows well the kind of filter our media is sluiced through. Most of us were just disappointed because we were hoping for a good bit of uncensored classic rock. Should have known better than to turn to MTV or VH-1 for music coverage. At least they weren't running a Real World marathon...
And I feel odd saying this, but yay for AOL...That made me shudder just a bit.
Posted at 12:06AM on Jul 3rd 2005 by Travis Forman
51. Finally
Think the last 10 minutes were rather indulgent of Sir Paul so you didn't miss much - damp squib. Who wanted to listen to some helter skelter Charlie Manson, last song but one, shit. Hey Jude Ok but not relevant. Lennon was always more politically aware and Bob should not have alloweed himself to be flattered. No real emotion at the end. Should have had an appropriate anthem to finish like DRIVE. Bob is losing his touch.
Posted at 7:20PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by gillian Campbell
52. On July 2, 2005, MTV and VH-1 were one and the same. Pleehhhh! Thank god for AOL which started broadcasting the footage when I got up at 8 in the morning! They didn't start until noon and their footage, well ... I've watched as much of the Live 8 concerts as possible. As of this post, I'm watching the Toronto gig with the Barenaked Ladies.
Posted at 7:41PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by William Wade
53. Oh man I'm embarrassed for Viacom. I just cannot imagine what goes on in the boardroom where the production decisions are made on how to telecast their live broadcasts. I knew from the start the MTV/VH1 broadcast would be a total joke. Any live broadcast they have ever done has been exactly the same...very little actual concert, alot of VJ's inane babbling and commercials. I'm assuming there must be some good business reason behind those decisions, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the would want to dedicate 8 hours to NOT broadcast a live concert event. Is anybody familiar with the decision making process of this kind of stuff??
Luckily, for us in the States, AOL came to the rescue. Thank you AOL! I do hope they'll be making the complete performances available in a downloadable format very soon so we can see all the performances we missed because of Viacom. Did Motley Crue, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Sarah McLachlan, etc., even play????!!!!!
Greg in NJ
Posted at 7:49PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by groggrog
54. Over here in Canada we've got some of the BEST coverage! We have all of the cities, including the important speaches from abroad. I don't think that they've cut off in the middle of a song and 0, that's right MTV, 0, commercials! Now that's television!
Posted at 9:12AM on Jul 3rd 2005 by RSM Stone
55. Finally, proof for the whole world to see that MTV and VH1 are nothing but corporate hacks. Shame that MTV couldn't have donated non-sponsored air-time instead of showing minute and one-half vignettes of the artists. But then we wouldn't have had nearly enoughair-time for their abysmal, no-talent talking-head VJ's. God forbid! All artists should boycott MTV. You really don't need them.
Posted at 8:06PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by Greg Frazier
56. Oh, don't worry, Gillian. You didn't offend! However, I do find that even though I agree that Americans are MUCH less informed than many people around the world, Europeans are often overly dismissal about the possibility of there being a significant number of Americans who do care/know about world events. I for one find myself constantly having to explain to people that I really do know who Steven Gerrard, Larent Robert and Wayne Rooney are, I do know what Potato Farls are (I MISS THEM!) and I know what the RUC is. :-)
No harm, no foul, though. :-)
Have a good night!
-Mark
Posted at 8:07PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by Mark Rabinowitz
57. My guess is that there was some legal deal by which MTV couldn't actually broadcast entire songs, because the frequency and consistency with which they cut into songs (and the short length of songs--half of "Won't Get Fooled Again"?!) couldn't have just been arbitrary. My wife asked me, "Do you wish they didn't show anything at all?" Hm...Hard to answer. I will say that if the reason for the poor coverage is just the fact that DVDs will later be released, then fine. I'll buy the DVD. But why not just tell us all that up front? Very sad to see MTV fallen so far.
Posted at 8:12PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by schmargle
58. Just wrapped the MTV coverage. This whole thing i think kinda sneaked up on them. Sir Bob basically started all of this less than two months ago, right? You cannot compare it to Live Aid, becasue those we're different times. With regard to technologicals aspects and the power of advertising dollars. I think MTV did do a good job at at least trying to convey the whole message. Still too many "video vuts" and favortism towards pop acts.
Posted at 8:15PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by Donny
59. Just re=reading all this makes me think some of you may have missed the whole point ie
Two things made me rethink my initial position on Live 8.
The first was the picture of the starving child on screen who was then presented as an adult on stage in London. Twenty years ago my son was 4 years old and now he is 24.
A life in parallel to that girl, but without any real struggle and fortunately not dependant on charity. The second was that people in Africa, twenty years on, are dying even faster, never mind suffering more, if you add Aids to the already endemic diseases and poverty.
Blair and Bush have spun and spin still. Perhaps a few pieces of music can stop their spin if we can convince them we have seen the Emperor’s new clothes for what they are.
But after all it was spinning the truth while wringing their hands that got them both re-elected, so we the people really have to wise up too. With any luck Geldof’s plan will at least put them on notice that we the people might actually care about something other than our own pockets or quality of coverage!!!
We’ll see, but for now my vote is for Bob,s spinning rather than theirs
goodnight
And Mark if you want a recipe for farls or soda bread just ask!
Posted at 8:44PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by gillian Campbell
60. I think ABC is going to get therir butts fined by the FCC. They managed to block out David Gilmour singing "bull----" in "Money", but they didn't clip out Roger Daltrey singing "Who the f--- are you". Let's see how perceptive the audience and FCC are on that one.
Posted at 9:21PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by Jim Brock
41. As I said before you guys in USA just don't know that you only ever get a very abridged version of anything. Big corpoations in bed with government etc remember Russia........ censorship of everything. Now in USA effective censorship of music event linked to politics???????? I'm never going to bitch about paying my BBC license fee ever again.
Posted at 6:46PM on Jul 2nd 2005 by gillian Campbell