Word: mtv
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...headlines as much for who he was as for who he is. Freston, the new co-president of media giant Viacom, had been chairman and CEO of MTV Networks, whose MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central channels make it the lifeline to the youth market. One of Freston's missions from Viacom boss Sumner Redstone is to freshen the image and, more important, goose the profits of Paramount Pictures, the most geriatric of the Hollywood studios. So when the company's new Mr. Big showed up at the iconic indie-film festival, media types saw it as a signal of revolutionary...
Then Freston's people paid a hefty $9 million, plus an extra $7 million for a two-picture production deal, for MTV Films to purchase the rights to Hustle & Flow, the inspiring tale of a Memphis street dude with rap-star dreams (think Rocky, except that he's a pimp). Industry savants saw that buy as a clue to the new direction. Freston was the face of triumphant youth culture--the kid whose stuffy parents have handed him not just the keys to the car but their credit cards and the deed to their home...
Freston has been shaping kids' tastes for a quarter-century. In 1980, this former clothing entrepreneur with an M.B.A. from New York University read about the start-up MTV network (then co-owned by Warner Communications, which was later acquired by Time Inc., this magazine's publisher), applied for a job and became one of the founding executives. He oversaw properties like VH1 and Nick at Nite and, friends say, has remained true to MTV values, both personally, as a U2 fan, and as a businessman, believing that interesting content can make money. "Audiences want variety--in their television...
Kids consume the product, then sound off to the manufacturer. "If they don't like something, they e-mail us to say, 'What the hell were you thinking?'" notes Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks. "If they love it, they say, 'We want more.' Unless we're in a constant state of reinvention, we're irrelevant...
...YEAR'S OSCARS. Yeah, he tells a small story with a certain size. It would be easy for a story like that to be told almost in head shots. But he makes it feel like a movie and not something you could see on TV. It isn't just MTV drivel. And not that there's anything wrong with MTV. I guess ... well, there is to me because I think that stuff is fatiguing to the brain. If we're going to have a pop culture that's just going to be a lot of flash images, we're never...