MTV’s annual Video Music Awards are the network’s most famous television offering. So when it decided to push ahead with this year’s ceremony on Sunday, August 30 as a live show – making the 2020 VMAs the first major live awards show to take place since COVID-19 events in America stopped – it turned decide the heads.
With only days to go, music fans still have no idea what they’re looking for.
The VMAs were to take place at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, but MTV abruptly nixed the venue two weeks ago after consulting with local health officials. Instead, artists will appear at various outdoor locations in New York neighborhoods; MTV and its parent company Viacom have been unclear about whether fans will be allowed on these shows, but only said audiences will be “restricted”.
Since massive outdoor stages are difficult to keep secret, photos of the lineups that have been built have already hit social media. One video from a stage in Greenpoint – which fans are speculating for Lady Gaga, one of the few confirmed artists – collects more than 7,000 views on Twitter in a day. MTV and Viacom are tight on the specifications around security procedures. When Rolling stone Asked by the VMAs what protocols have been put in place to prevent fans from trying to see their favorite stars on show day, a ViacomCBS spokesperson responded with the following statement: “The health and safety of everyone involved in We have established strict protocols, including testing and screening, and we work closely with state and local officials to ensure that all guidelines are followed.All artists and crew are subject to quarantine and test protocols and remain in quarantine if they do not rehearse / perform / work. “
However, performers traveling to New York for the event have been released from the mandatory 14-day quarantine that other travelers face, CBS News reported Monday. So, if artists fly in for the show, they do not have to quarantine two weeks prior to work and rehearsal, but MTV has instructed them to do so during non-working hours.
Music production experts say it’s not too early to set up a show of this stall if it can be done safely – but that includes details such as online COVID-19 precautionary courses and socially distant stage construction and audio and light settings. “The reality is, these kinds of events that are televised are often a shit show out of dealing with COVID, from a production perspective, ”says one backstage expert, who asked to remain anonymous because they are not specifically involved with the VMAs. ‘I would like proof [of safety] before sending one of my crew into the field. If there are four stages, will they be sure to have four production managers and four stage managers? Will everyone have the same health training? ”
But the performance slate itself is also a point of confusion for most music fans. While MTV said earlier this month that artists such as Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Miley Cyrus, BTS and Maluma will be performing, she did not indicate which sets are live from New York.
Stars Roddy Ricch and J Balvin were once confirmed as performers – but both have since been eliminated. Roddy broke the news of his cancellation on Instagram Live, saying the team “did everything in our power to make this work,” but “because of COVID compliance at the last minute we had to call the show.” Balvin, who lit the VMA stage with Bad Bunny last year, has not yet provided a public explanation. However, the star is based in Colombia, where international travel is prohibited, with the only exceptions for cargo and humanitarian flights, and Balvin also announced that he returned from COVID-19 earlier in August.
Other do-it-yourself artists include Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, according to various rumors circulating in the music industry.
Since these are the first VMAs to emerge since the merger of CBS and Viacom in December, the higher ups at the parent company have a caviar on their hands. This television is an opportunity to test a new template for other events – for example, CBS presents the Grammys and the Super Bowl. CBS even made the decision to simulate the show on a broadcast network for the first time ever, by adding it to Sunday night’s lineup on another of its channels, The CW. The aim is also to strengthen the VMAs’ basement ratings of recent years. While 12.4 million people voted for the VMAs on their TVs in 2011, that number halved in 2012, to just 4.9 million in 2019.
Much of this has to do with the general decline of cable TV. The number of households with pay-TV peaked in 2010 at 105 million and has since dropped to 82.9 million. Against problems in television, MTV claims that the VMAs are still successful online: The show garnered 269 million “social / video” views in 2019, an increase of 85% compared to the year before, according to Conviva Social Insights. But if a fan passively watches a 15-second Instagram story scrolling through their feed, is that considered a social / video view? Reps from Conviva did not respond immediately when Rolling stone asked about the methodology of that metric.
All told, the 2020 VMAs face significant pressure on Sunday. When MTV hosts the annual festival at the end of each summer, it’s essentially the one time of year that the network is relevant to young generations, even if it seems to be hanging on to viewers through a thread. (As video killed the radio star, the internet and its offspring YouTube came pretty close to killing MTV.) But the show was able to capture many points of novelty – from the return of Lady Gaga to BTS ‘highly anticipated first-ever VMA appearance to the broadcasting strangeness of a live show during a pandemic and their new simulcast – interest up again? At least it won’t be long before we find out.
