MTV Thinks Mysterious OMAs Can Rival VMAs

By Jett Wells Posted Feb 28th 2011 07:00PM

Twenty-seven years ago, MTV challenged the way people looked at music by honoring not just songs but videos in the first-ever Video Music Awards. Now, TV's biggest music network thinks it has the right formula to do it all over again. MTV has announced plans for a digital music award show, the OMAs, and MTV's head of music group digital, Dermot McCormack, tells PopEater he's out to push the envelope -- whether people like it or not.

"Back in 1984 when MTV debuted the inaugural VMAs, lots of folks raised their eyebrows about a cable channel launching an award show to celebrate a relatively new medium, the music video," McCormack says. "Much like the first VMAs, which are actually the inspiration for the OMAs, we expect and in fact encourage a few raised eyebrows with the OMAs."

MTV, however, continues to be elusive about the actual show, which is set to debut in April, and won't even say what the "O" in OMAs is supposed to mean.

"We purposely left the name open for personal interpretation," McCormack tells us. "There's no contest or poll for folks to vote on what the 'O' will stand for. Simply put, the 'O' can stand for whatever you, the music fan, want it to be. It can run the gamut from 'online' to 'OMG' to 'outrageous.'"

Even more confusing is that while the actual awards for the show remain undetermined, McCormack speculates the show might not honor only underground indie music, but music technology, YouTube fan videos and Twitter personalities as well.

"With all the recent music innovation in the digital space, we have endless possibilities for categories. We're considering a variety of awards like best fan army, best music app, best fan parody, most outrageous/overexposed artist on Twitter," McCormack says. "In the coming weeks, we'll reveal the categories, nominees and the voting process that will be driven by social media."

While MTV says they're "championing indie music" and serving as new music "curators," McCormack remained coy when asked how underground the music will be and whether the OMAs will include mashup and remix artists that sample licensed music. Whatever it is, it won't be the VMAs or Grammys.

"Instead of nominating Lady Gaga for video of the year, she might be nominated for most web parodied artist or most influential artist on Twitter," McCormack says.

More details about the online show will likely come forward in the coming weeks, but at the moment, the show may not have a traditional host like other televised award shows.

"We're not sure if there will be a host in the traditional sense, but certainly a master or masters of ceremonies to drive the experience," McCormack tells us. "We're currently developing a short list of possibilities that includes artists, comedians, animated characters and web celebrities."

Tags: MTV, omas

Comments

(10)

Monday 28 February

By will

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MTV just needs to be blown up into oblivion. It has programmed the worst garbage in televisions history. They started out being innovative and of course corporate and greed got involved. MTV just go away and take your Jersey Shore and pregnant teens with you. Maybe your next programming directors brilliant idea is for these two shows to merge. Then they all can screw other.

By ajschrod

A lot of people agree with you, will. Mtv was once an inovative presence on cable, but it has sunk into worthlessness1

By sleezyscoundrel

The "O" stands for 'O'bama? 'O'prah? 'O'h sh^t, not another meaningless Music Award show?

By Renee

This is ridiculous! Why in the world do we need yet another award show! For the love of all that is awesome MTV go back to being awesome, Jersey Shore, When I was 17 all this pregnant teen bull Sh*t is so stupid! Go back to being MUSIC TELEVISION! Bring back the music of all genres and keep it awesome!

Tuesday 01 March

By alice

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WHEN MTV FIRST CAME OUT BACK, IT WAS COOL BUT WAS SOON UPSTAGED BY VHS1 ONCE THEY STSRTED CATERING TO THE MONKEY RACE AND PLAYING CRAP LIKE RAP AND OTHER GHETTO NOISES. MTV HAS NEVER GOT OUT OF THE HOLE OF SIMPLETONS THEY EDUG FOR THEMSELVES. ANYONE THAT WATCHES MTV BELONGS ON AOL BLACK VOICES , NOT HERE !

By Owen Eff

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Bitter much? You do realize that nobody finds you as important as you find yourself, right?

Alice needs some love and affection!

By Kevin

I loved MTV when it was a music televison station, now it is just trash!

By Julio

MTV = Monkey - Tele - Vision ! Programming for the ape race of morons.

By Oh Balogna

How pretentious to name an awards show without letting us in on what the heck the name means. I mean, really, how insulting. And kind of just stupid. I was angry just reading about it. MTV? RIP.

Julio?

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