MTV’s free-music-video model made executives balk at paying for any original content

Evidence

But when Bunim and Murray presented their budget, MTV’s executives balked. As Murray recalled, they said, “We get our music videos for free, and now we’re going to spend $300,000 for half an hour of television?” Apparently Freston and MTV had not completely thought through the idea of new formats; virtually any of them would require actually spending money on content. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 822

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: MTV avoided expensive original programming because stockholders would not tolerate content overhead — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 819

Broader Connections

• MTV avoided expensive original programming because stockholders would not tolerate content overhead #qualifies (0.90) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 819