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Through the Drop, “the artist owns one of our hugest programming blocks for the night.”
——MTV's Tina Exarhos

MTV TO DEBUT “10 SPOT DROP”

Emerging Artist “Takeover” of Popular Programming Block to Surround Reality
Shows with Music
Dude. Can’t think of any possible way to make your nightly dose of Power Girls, Making the Band, The Ashlee Simpson Show, Newlyweds, The Real World and all the rest better than it already is? Don’t worry, MTV has done the thinking for you. Go ahead and finish your bong load.

A new music-driven initiative called “10 Spot Drop” is the latest effort to put some of the “M” back in MTV. The concept is simple: MTV will choose one emerging artist per night to “take over” its prized “10 Spot,” the 10-11 p.m. “appointment-viewing” hour that showcases the programs referenced above and more.

The Drop, which MTV is promoting with the tag, “One band, one night, one connection,” will feature the selected artists in a number of ways: First, Drop promo spots will use the artist’s music and reference the artist’s name. These spots will air 50 times during the week before the artist’s Drop appearance.

Next, the artist’s music will be featured in the “10 Spot” opening, a nightly 10-second kick-off. Then, as regular episodes of “10 Spot” shows air, MTV will insert a total of eight original vignettes of 10 to 15 seconds each, which will serve as bumpers in and out of commercials. The vignettes will explore some aspect of the artist or the artist’s music; examples include a video collage set to an excerpt of a song (reminiscent of the good ol’ Liquid TV days), a sound bite of the artist talking about his or her music, and a rolling list of tour dates set to the sounds of a bar fight.

Finally, a Drop artist’s music video will be featured during the end credits of “10 Spot” shows, once at the end of each half-hour show.

Since programming in the “10 Spot” is reality-driven, the introduction of brief musical interludes is likely to perk up viewers’ ears, especially since the music will be fresh and for the most part unfamiliar. The first “10 Spot Drop” artist will be Reprise's My Chemical Romance.

Through the Drop, “the artist owns one of our hugest programming blocks for the night,” said MTV Executive VP Marketing Tina "Waiting to" Exarhos, who talked to us about stuff using words like “modules,” “packaging,” “animated bugs” and “credit squeezes” (which makes us feel all tingly) once we reached her at the mall. The original vignettes produced for each Drop artist will “never be duplicated or formulaic—they will always be and will always feel original and special to that artist and night. Now leave me alone—the Prada Spring line is in and I'm busy."

The "10 Spot Drop" will debut March 21.

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