MTV executive Van Toffler left the company in 2015. In 2012, MTV News hosted a live 30-minute sit-down interview with him called “Ask Obama Live: An Interview With the President.”īut over the years, amid corporate restructuring and the arrival of the edgier Vice News and BuzzFeed, MTV News’ sway began to fade. President Obama appeared several times over the years. Some compared the scene to one three decades earlier, when Walter Cronkite broke into CBS programming to announce that President John F.
In a quick cadence, he announced that it was a “very sad day” and that “the leader of one of rock’s most gifted and promising bands, Nirvana, is dead.” He noted that Cobain’s body had been found in a house in Seattle, and that he had apparently died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Loder sat at a desk in the MTV Studios in New York, holding a single piece of paper. That same year, Loder interrupted MTV’s regular programming with a special report to announce that Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain had died by suicide. That question, and Clinton’s response (“Usually briefs”), shifted the boundaries of what was viewed as acceptable political discourse. The moment became a national sensation, decades before the notion of “going viral” was part of the vernacular. Everybody watched it, and everybody wanted to be a part of it, including Bill Clinton.”ĭuring a 1994 appearance by then-President Clinton at an MTV town hall to address the rise of violence, an audience member famously asked him: “Is it boxers or briefs?” MTV, in those days, was a big cultural force. “We started making documentaries and winning awards. “We started doing more hard-hitting stuff,” said Herzog. The following year, MTV News brought viewers a special report on “Gangsta Rap.” In 1993, MTV broadcast a special report, “Hate Rock,” anchored by Loder, which a Los Angeles Times reviewer said provided a “sober assessment of the forces that have combined to create a league of race-baiting, post-punk skinheads” in Germany and elsewhere. The WGA strike, the first in Hollywood for 15 years, could hurt some media companies and help others.
So Linda came up with this idea of hiring Kurt Loder from Rolling Stone magazine.”Ĭompany Town With writers strike, studios face a high-stakes endurance test “Some of that was unfair criticism, but we felt that maybe wanted someone with more credibility. “The biggest stars - Madonna, Prince, Bruce and others - were a little less interested in talking to the VeeJays, because they thought they were, well, fluffy,” Herzog said. “All the sudden, news became a thing,” Herzog said.īut the network encountered some resistance, he said. MTV News staff helped coordinate live interviews of some of rock music’s biggest names.
The turning point came the following year with the Live Aid concert to raise money for famine relief in Africa. Initially, there were hourly news segments, Herzog said. MTV once stood for Music Television, after all. But the guys who ran MTV, like Bob Pittman, were radio guys, and they didn’t really want to interrupt the music.” “They gave me a little money to start a department.
Rushmore days of music video,” Herzog told The Times in an interview. “This was the summer of ‘Purple Rain,’ ‘Born in the USA,’ the Jacksons’ Victory Tour and Madonna.
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