Ask The Audience

Continuing on with our discussion about the MTV Video Music Awards (VMA), we will be looking to interview and poll the audience of all past VMAs to help us discover what makes an entertaining award show. What were their favorite parts of the show, what do they look forward to, etc.

What are the best ways to find our sample?

We can look to what is known as cluster sampling to find viewers of the video music awards over the past 26 years. Like any network and television show, MTV has a certain demographic they reach out to. There are probably files complied of the names of people who were once or are now in their target demographic. We would use these files to create our list for the cluster sampling, separate the list of names by state, then contact every 10th person on each list.

Hopefully, we would be able to reach those who had watched the VMAs when they first aired in 1984! The goal is to find out what viewers liked or did not like to eventually create an ideal, entertaining VMA show!

Starting now and continuing every week I will be posting my favorite MTV VMA performances, this week is Britney Spears and her performance of "Oops I Did It Again" in 2000. What are some of your favorite performances?

A Statement from Chelsea Handler!

"If I paid attention to critics, I wouldn't have a career. It was one of the highest-rated shows MTV's had in 10 years. People who didn't know me were probably like, 'Oh my god, who is that?' But we had a good time, so I was surprised to hear anything negative."

-Chelsea Handler to Now magazine, on dealing with the overwhelming negative response to her role as host of this year's MTV Video Music Awards

What Makes A Good Video Music Award Show?

Mentioned last week was the idea of looking at past Video Music Awards (VMAs) to produce better VMAs in the future, MTV should look to bring in high ratings and satisfy their viewers.

This isn't an easy task, but by conducting a study, defining variables and measuring those variables...the end result would be to create a VMA that audiences love and remember!

In the case of the VMAs, we'll look at the concept of satisfaction since it's the feeling we want viewers to have when watching the MTV award show. What would satisfy viewers? I love good musical performances and comedy.

Since good musical performances and comedy is what satisfies me, we'll take a look at past award shows and measure the amount of times there was a good musical performance and measure the number of laughs I had throughout the show.

Luckily for us, MTV has an archive with the complete history of past Video Music Awards. We can easily look for the years with the best musical performances and the years with the best host, since they usually provide the laughs.

What made past award shows so great was how explicit, candid and shocking they were. Everyone remembers the year (2001) that Britney Spears performed "I'm a Slave For You" with a snake around her neck. How about the year 2003, when Chris Rock hosted providing great laughs throughout the show, he took jabs at celebrities during his opening act and is said to have the best VMA opening monologues since Eddie Murphy in 1985. (Check out Chris Rock's '03 opening here!)

Questions have arisen amongst viewers, if this year's host Chelsea Handler had written her own material or if MTV used their own writers for Handler's jokes. Chelsea Handler is most known for making fun of celebrities and saying what she thinks on her own talk show Chelsea Lately on E! Which is what viewers, including myself were looking forward to.

By looking through the VMA history over the past 26 years, we'll pick out the best parts to create a great award show, hopefully in time for next year.

What do you think would make for a better Video Music Award show for 2011?

Huge Ratings! Successful Show?

The MTV video music awards aired on Sunday, September 12th to huge ratings! Approximately 11.4 million viewers tuned in to watch the award show hosted by Chelsea Handler.

Even though the VMAs pulled in the largest audience on the network since 2002 does that equate to the show's success? What did viewers think of the show?

Host Chelsea Handler received mixed reviews, many thought her jokes fell flat and were expecting more from the VMAs first female host since Rosanne Barr in 1994. The New York Times pointed out that Handler looked uncomfortable and was nervous the entire broadcast and considered her the "worst in the show's history."

The VMAs are about more than the host, what about the musical performances?

Some of the best performances of the night included Usher who performed "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love" and "OMG" along with Florence and the Machine who performed her song "Dog Days Are Over". Rihanna also surprised viewers when she performed with rapper Eminem during "Love the Way You Lie." Although these performances were all entertaining, viewers were disappointed by the amount of lip-syncing by these musical artists.

MTV kept the show interactive, they encouraged viewers to tweet about the show and monitored a "twitter tracker" during the award show. Topics they were tracking were #vmas, #ladygaga, #jerseyshore, #kanyewest, among others.

On paper it seemed that MTV was going to bring in one of the best VMAs; a great host, entertaining performances and even the use of social media allowing MTV's publics to communicate with the network. Why did the show seem to fall flat according to viewers? MTV still has a chance to impress viewers in time for the 2011 VMAs!

For the success of the 2011 Video Music Awards and all future VMAs, MTV should consider conducting a longitudinal study of past MTV award shows. What has worked best to bring in high ratings AND satisfy viewers over the past 26 years? Maybe we shouldn't give up on the female host just yet, what about Tina Fey and/or Amy Poehler who are favorites amongst MTV's audience. How about opening the show with a more exciting performance that pumps up the audience and at home viewers. Just a few tweaks could lead to a better MTV Video Music Award show!

If you missed this years VMAs...check them out here! 

Moonmen & Golden Popcorn

There is something very exciting about award shows, maybe it's the thrill of seeing your favorite celebrities from music, movies, television or Broadway. The thrill of watching a live show (you never know what can happen on live tv!)

When MTV is scheduled to air one of their two popular award shows, the Video Music Awards (VMA) or the MTV Movie Awards, I am sure to tune in. 

MTV award shows promise great performances, a great host and even a few surprises...surprises that have us talking until the next award show comes around. Some examples being the triple kiss between Britney Spears, Madonna and Christina Aguilera at the 2003 VMAs or at 2000 VMAs while Fred Durst accepted an award for Best Rock Video, Rage Against the Machine bassist Tim Commerford climbed up the fake palm tree behind the podium.

This blog has been created for my PR research methods class, I am a graduate student working on my masters in Public Relations at Quinnipiac University. Throughout the semester I will focus my attention on MTV award shows, how do they publicize?, how do they pick a host?, how do they develop their list of nominees? My goal is to answer all these questions while tying in the readings from my PR research class.

Like most people my age, I have grown up watching MTV. I rushed home after school to catch Carson Daly hosting TRL and stayed up late to watch the "10 spot". MTV continues to provide great television and music, with television shows like "Teen Mom" and "Jersey Shore" and music videos featured on MTV2!

I am looking forward to watching the VMAs this Sunday on September 12th hosted by comedian Chelsea Handler!