The MTV VMAs ratings drop 34% from last year.
The MTV Video Music Awards used to be a pop culture holiday. All of the music industry's biggest singers, Hollywood's biggest actors, and the fashion industry's most popular stylists would travel and be a part of the epic event. Meanwhile, millions of teens would sit in front of their TV sets and see what their favorite pop-singer is up to.
Those days are now long and gone as the network reportedly suffers horrible ratings drops for the 2016 MTV VMAs. Sunday night's telecast, which was aired across 11 different networks including VH1 and BET, featured performances from the music industry's biggest celebrities including, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Kanye West and Future. But despite all of the A-list talent, the show only had 6.5 million viewers. That is down 34 percent from last year. And that is a huge problem.
Watching the MTV Video Music Awards, the show featured nearly everything you can possibly include in an award show including reality stars, and A-list talent. But, it appears a new generation of teenagers are no longer interested in what MTV has to offer. In fact, linear TV ratings have been steadily decreasing in the last ten years, since the ability to view TV shows on-demand became a widespread option. In addition, people are using their computers, laptops, and mobile devices to watch their favorite show.
For example, with the advancements in technology people no longer have to sit alone by themselves and watch TV. They can easily engage with millions of other people talking about the show right now on social media. And this is what exactly happened to the MTV VMAs. According to reports, the VMAs reportedly had nearly 63 million video streams, up 70 percent from last years' numbers, and Facebook accounted for almost 46 million streams, an upward growth of nearly 1000% since last year. In addition, the hashtag #VMA was even the top global trending topic for 13 hours yesterday.
At the end of the day, people are not watching television the same way that they used to. Instead, the millennial generation is choosing to engage with others online, while streaming the content on their phones and computers. But when it comes to revenue, digital advertising does not make as much money as regular TV commercials, which is the biggest problem not only for MTV but for the entire TV industry as a whole.
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