M2, a new interactive web-based TV channel which lets viewers control the programming, was previewed at London’s ICA by its developers MTV Networks Europe and PSINet today.
M2 has been active in the United States since 1996 and will launch fully across Europe this October. The web TV channel aims to champion left-field and ground-breaking artists and videos and hopes to attract an audience that is more adventurous in its music tastes than that catered for by MTV’s established formats.
The stand-out feature of the digital TV channel allows M2 viewers to access and choose from up to 1500 new and classic music videos to compile their personalised 14-video, one-hour ‘show’. Their choice is then submitted by email to M2 and a transmission date allocated. Celebrities will also be invited to put together their own hour-long shows for the channel.
Brent Hansen, President and Chief Executive of MTV Networks Europe, said today: “M2 is going to be the hippest television channel to come out of the MTV building. A complementary service to MTV, M2 will add a higher-end, more adventurous musical mix: non-playlist, and with more artistic video content.
“It will be there as a pure complement to the more mainstream service that MTV does so successfully for us. The brief to the M2 team is to take full advantage of all technology available.”
Other elements of the channel promise unedited interview footage of music stars as well as video directors re-appraising and re-editing their promos in special programmes.
August 2 is the official date on which MTV will make M2 available to web-users but budding TV programmers who surf in to www.m2europe.com will find the site virtually fully functional.