When I logged onto Facebook recently, I noticed that some of my friends were fans of It’s On with Alexa Chung, a MTV show hosted by this generation’s Kate Moss. Although she isn’t a household name in America, Chung is a former U.K. model turned TV presenter and a fashion icon across the pond. I expected that the Facebook link would redirect to a fan page-a public profile that allows users to share their admiration with the rest of the social networking community.
Instead, I arrived at the show’s Facebook page, which includes updates by the hostess herself. Viewers can also submit questions to celebrity guests, vote on which songs they want bands to play when they appear live, and provide general feedback.
Although an unofficial celebrity endorsement and an appearance on Oprah hurtled Twitter into the mainstream earlier this year, Ms. Chung’s show is very different. MTV’s dual partnership with Facebook and Twitter generates buzz on-screen in various forms, including tweets, content sourced from Facebook profiles and fan pages, audience contribution from polls set to remixed YouTube videos, and round-the-clock updates from Chung’s own Twitter account. Alexa Chung is both a milestone in the convergence between TV and the Web and a fresh infusion of innovation for a TV network that should have caught onto the social media craze a lot earlier.
If you wanted to get a message on MTV a decade ago, your best bet was to write it on a poster and join the cheering crowds outside the network’s New York studio during a TRL taping, in hopes of finding your way into the scope of the cameras sweeping overhead. Lucky viewers could call in for the chance to ask a question to celebrity guests on-air.
MTV canceled TRL earlier this year, after the network’s reputation as a hub of pop-culture influence had long since started to fade. New music was being discovered on MySpace pages and niche music blogs. Popular clips from last night’s TV shows were swapped via YouTube and Hulu links in instant messages and posts on Facebook profiles, defeating the long-standing champ.
With Alexa Chung, MTV has made a totally different show. The iconic TRL set has been converted into something that looks like a loft apartment, with the studio audience scattered around like party guests. There is no countdown. Instead, a talk show format inspired in part by late-night programming, with topics ranging from movies and music to the latest YouTube sensations (whom Chung plans to regularly bring onto the set to see if their singing, dancing, or other oddball talents are for real).
And, of course, the screaming crowds in Times Square are all at home. In their place is the silent, yet deafening, sound of tweets.