MTV Flux: New social networking channel will allow user-generated content

From September 6th there’ll be a new kind of TV channel on the block.

MTV Flux is MTV Network’s first dip into the social networking arena – currently dominated on the web by the likes of MySpace and Bebo – and video sharing, popularised by YouTube.

Flux will allow viewers to publish, via mobile phone and the Net, messages and video content to play alongside music videos of their choice. MTV are hoping this will draw a young audience back from Internet services such as YouTube.

Michiel Bakker, managing director of MTV in the UK and Ireland, said that the service would be the first to allow users to influence an entire channel and upload their content to be seen in a television environment.

It won’t have a schedule, but will be overseen by MTV to ensure that it meets broadcasting regulations.

The service will be free to sign up to and will be ad-supported.
Naturally, advertisers are keen to find ways of targeting the
difficult-to-reachy 16-24 age group.

It will be interesting to see if MTV can create a success from this mix
of music and interactivity. It’s something they’re keen to expand upon,
though. "At the end of the day, all of our channels might be Fluxed. It
might be the redefinition of our television channels," said Bakker.

This sounds like an interesting progression for MTV, and despite their
late entry into social networking, they have enough unique qualities to
make their offering attractive. They’ll need to find ways of developing
their service and making it ‘sticky’ if they’re to hold on to fickle
consumers.

There are also ethical issues to grapple with, as with all video sharing services, concerning privacy, legality and copyright.

What do you reckon to MTV Flux?