Anderson: MySpace Has "Replaced MTV"

Filed in archive Business Trends on January 18, 2007

Spiegel Online via ross Fadner

"We have replaced MTV," MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson said flatly in a recent interview with the German paper Der Spiegel. That bold statement comes just a day after MTV announced its flagship program, "Total Request Live," may be canceled due to the gradual decline of its ratings.

Indeed, MTV, once the undisputed king of teen and 20something content, is finding it harder to reach its core audience as the Internet generation, which fundamentally communicates differently than previous generations, grows up.

Anderson goes on to tell the story of MySpace. Originally, founders Anderson and Chris DeWolfe started the social network as an online meeting point for creative types in Los Angeles-actors, musicians, and artists. A revolutionary idea for its time, LA-based MySpace struggled to find investors, given the radical nature of its content-that is, user-generated content.

At the time the site was founded in 2003, social-networking sites tended to be the domain of tech geeks only; Anderson and DeWolfe set up MySpace to be a place for everyday people to express themselves creatively. At 140 million worldwide users, MySpace has grown to be virtually synonymous with Generation Y and the slightly younger "Millennials."