peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (09/06/83)
NBC may have opened the floodgates with "Friday Night Videos" if a new local Toronto show is indicative. "Video Singles", every weeknight from 1am-2am, is produced and shown by Toronto's channel 47 (CFMT) and has a bunch of videos, hosted by a "Top 40"-style DJ, and a smattering of talk such as a listing of upcoming concerts and music news. A cute twist is that channel 47's pseudonym, which they've used for over three years, is "MTV", standing for Multi-cultural Television (they broad- cast in over a dozen languages) and their MTV logo is clearly visible in the VJ's booth. Not much adventurous video here, though they did show a new Talking Heads piece. For adventurous video in the Toronto area, have a look at the Video show at the Festival of Festivals (early Sept.) and the Video Culture show (early Nov.). Sorry for all the Toronto-specific stuff... to redeem myself: On the subject of music as "product" (ref. recent discussions of commercial music), I recently bought a copy of Billboard-- it is a real shock to see records spoken about like they were tubes of toothpaste or bars of soap, just as a commodity to be marketed. And the issue I happened to buy had an article on record stores selling software... if you thought using terms like 'user-friendly' is excessive hype, I'd wager you ain't seen nothing yet... Do try to spend 1/2hr with a copy of Billboard sometime, tho; it presents the value system of the record business very clearly indeed and this certainly does influence the music recorded.