Much ado about changes to Canada’s pop station
Bell Media announced the Much Music Video Awards will no longer be chained to its youth-branded namesake. Instead, the company will be simulcasting the MMVAs — airing Sunday and hosted by Ed Sheeran — across many of its more mainstream channels as well as its online properties.
The move is the latest in what many viewers who grew up watching edgy VJs and monumental music videos on Much-Music in the 1980s, ’90s and 2000s consider an erosion of “the Nation’s Music Station.” It’s a dream many believe died last year when Bell fired most of the staff — it recently replaced a large number of on-air video jockeys with so-called Much Creators — and phased out original, live programming in favour of shows from the U.S.
So where does that leave the Much Music Video Awards — perhaps the last bastion of the old guard (and likely the last to make money for the brand)?
“It’s our big, tentpole event,” says Justin Stockman, vice-president of entertainment specialty channels (which includes the channel now called just Much) at Bell Media. “It reinforces that we really are about the best in pop culture and that we bring fans amazing experiences where they get to be up close and personal with big stars. The MMVAs is the best version of that. It’s become a real tradition, not just for us but for the whole city and country.
Stockman believes, despite the superficial changes, Much has remained true to the vision of those early days.
“Much’s mission statement hasn’t really changed,” he says over the phone from the building formerly known as Much HQ. “I think we’re tweaking it but we’re still focused on the same things we always were: youth, pop culture and being relevant to a young audience.”
As for the naysayers, Stockman says Much is simply not for them in the same way it wasn’t for their parents.
“I think people connect with a youth brand when they’re youths and then they are no longer youth. And we at Much have to keep changing to connect with current youth,” he says.
“And if you’re no longer a youth, you may not recognize what you used to like and have negative feelings about it,” he says. “But actually we’re doing a lot of the same things we always were. We just have to tweak how we do it to be relevant.”
To prove his point, he says the station “actually (plays) the same amount of music videos” as it did before. That may be true, but most of them now air outside prime viewing hours.
And as for the beloved VJs, they’ve evolved too. Much still employs one or two classic models “to handle the heavy lifting” but the youth of today want YouTube stars, so Much abides. The creators “would certainly fit the role of our pop culture VJs. What they were and what they’ve evolved into,” Stockman says.
As for the show itself, though the second M now stands for the “music” in “music video” — so it’s the Much Music Video Awards, not the MuchMusic Video Awards — Stockman says Bell has no plans to change the awards format.
Sheeran is playing the Rogers Arena tonight at 7:30 p.m.