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Can MTV Stay Cool? (Another lib icon in trouble?)
Business Week ^ | 2/9/6 | Business Week

Posted on 02/10/2006 12:27:29 PM PST by voletti

Nearly 40 years ago, in a blue-collar Irish neighborhood in Scranton, Pa., Judy McGrath fell in love with music. As much as her father, Charles, tried to get his only child to listen to Duke Ellington on the family hi-fi, she preferred the Rolling Stones, and later, Neil Young. Her mother, Ann, read The Catcher in the Rye to her when she was seven and explained to Judy that the nuns at her Catholic grade school weren't always right: She could have an opinion, too. It was in this progressive environment in the McGraths' small house on Orchard Street that Judy began to imagine a life beyond Scranton, in New York. "It felt like a land far, far away," she recalls. "I'd never been to New York City until I came here looking for a job. It felt impossible, like there was a sense of a tribe, of people I wanted to be part of. So I had this idea that I could write about music. That would be the ideal job for me." She eventually set her sights on Rolling Stone, that pinnacle of pop culture in the late 1960s.

McGrath made it to New York, but never to her favorite magazine. Her life instead took a magical detour that led her to write on-air promotions for a new invention, music television. Twenty-five years later, at 53, she is chairman and CEO of MTV Networks Co. The $7 billion-a-year operation she oversees is a collection of some of the most recognizable brands in the business, from the original MTV to Nickelodeon to VH1 to Comedy Central. Their programs are seen in 169 countries and heard in 28 languages. Under her management are such youth icons as SpongeBob SquarePants, the South Park runts, and comedian Jon Stewart.

(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: mtv; music; needscowbell
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1 posted on 02/10/2006 12:27:30 PM PST by voletti
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To: voletti

What a boring article.


2 posted on 02/10/2006 12:29:42 PM PST by D-Chivas
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To: D-Chivas

Yeah. Even I couldn't get myself to read half of it... The lib icon in trouble thing was more a hope than a declarationn...


3 posted on 02/10/2006 12:30:45 PM PST by voletti (Awareness and Equanimity.)
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To: voletti
To keep up the momentum after Bill Clinton won, they decided to host an official inaugural ball. Certain that Clinton would never show, McGrath says she was taken aback when she got word "about halfway through the show that Elvis is in the building," she recalls. "Clinton walks in, gets onstage, and says, 'MTV had everything to do with my election.' It was the best."

That's all you need to know.

4 posted on 02/10/2006 12:30:58 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: voletti

Her mother, Ann, read The Catcher in the Rye to her when she was seven and explained to Judy that the nuns at her Catholic grade school weren't always right...

And little Judy grew up to do more than 99% of the population in destroying traditional values and replacing them with things like atheism, gay marriage, feminism, multi-culturalism and socialism.  We owe you quite a debt, Chuck and Ann.

Owl_Eagle

(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,

 it was probably sarcasm)

5 posted on 02/10/2006 12:32:52 PM PST by End Times Sentinel (In Memory of my Dear Friend Henry Lee II)
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To: voletti

Don't you have to be cool to stay cool?


6 posted on 02/10/2006 12:32:56 PM PST by siunevada (If we learn nothing from history, what's the point of having one? - Peggy Hill)
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To: dfwgator

I like MTV, when they played music. I have not watched them in years.


7 posted on 02/10/2006 12:35:06 PM PST by TXBSAFH (Proud Dad of Twins, What Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger!!!!!!)
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To: voletti
"Nearly 40 years ago, in a blue-collar Irish neighborhood in Scranton, Pa., Judy McGrath fell in love with music."

Ironic that she would become CEO of something that completely destroyed it.

8 posted on 02/10/2006 12:36:30 PM PST by Screamname (Tagline)
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To: Owl_Eagle
And little Judy grew up to do more than 99% of the population in destroying traditional values and replacing them with things like atheism, gay marriage, feminism, multi-culturalism and socialism. We owe you quite a debt, Chuck and Ann.

Well put. (But she had plenty of help from the other 99%, including all too many with parents like Chuck and Ann.)

9 posted on 02/10/2006 12:37:20 PM PST by madprof98
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To: voletti

MTV... isn't that the channel that used to play music videos?


10 posted on 02/10/2006 12:37:29 PM PST by Mr. Brightside (Me? I'm just a lawn mower.)
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To: voletti
Stay? MTV hasn't been cool for at least fifteen years.
11 posted on 02/10/2006 12:37:37 PM PST by TChris ("Unless you act, you're going to lose your world." - Mark Steyn)
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To: TXBSAFH

The only good thing MTV has had is Beavis and Butthead and Kennedy (The Republican VJ, not Ted).


12 posted on 02/10/2006 12:37:42 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: voletti
If ever a thread needed more cowbell it is this one.
13 posted on 02/10/2006 12:38:48 PM PST by advance_copy (Stand for life, or nothing at all)
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To: voletti
Her mother, Ann, read The Catcher in the Rye to her when she was seven...

If you ask me, that's child abuse.
14 posted on 02/10/2006 12:39:02 PM PST by Antoninus (The only reason you're alive today is because your parents were pro-life.)
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To: voletti
It's Business Week.... Not a credible source.
15 posted on 02/10/2006 12:39:46 PM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. Slay Pinch)
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To: TXBSAFH
I like MTV, when they played music. I have not watched them in years.

MTV was cool when they played nothing but videos. Now it sucks. VH1, same thing. My sister-in-law has VH1 Classic via satellite. Last year we visited and I was blown away by the videos. It was 1982 all over again. It was really entertaining. Went back this year, and now VH1 Classic has dumped the videos in favor of bad programming.

16 posted on 02/10/2006 12:40:28 PM PST by Wolfie
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To: Wolfie

I really don't want to see the music videos, considering the current crop of music sucks, but wouldn't mind watching a few hours of "Pimp My Ride." :^)


17 posted on 02/10/2006 12:42:38 PM PST by steelcurtain
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To: voletti

When was MTV anything but a lowest-common-denominator dorkfest?


18 posted on 02/10/2006 12:42:41 PM PST by Hemingway's Ghost (Spirit of '75)
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To: voletti
Ah yes, Business Week....

The business world as written about by a bunch of communists!

I cancelled my subscription after about three issues!

19 posted on 02/10/2006 12:43:51 PM PST by safeasthebanks ("The most rewarding part, was when he gave me my money!" - Dr. Nick)
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To: voletti

can't "Stay" what they never were.


20 posted on 02/10/2006 12:46:00 PM PST by camle (keep your mind open and somebody will fill it full of something for you.)
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