Daily BrewMuchMusic launches a new logo featuring five fewer letters than before
MuchMusic has unveiled its long-overdue new branding and it doesn't have any room for the second part of its name.
The third major logo overhaul in the history of the channel, which launched as "The Nation's Music Station" in 1984 with a stylized "M," has replaced the planet design it used for the past 15 years.
Now, it is entirely focused on a basic four-letter word.
While the previous logo was also reduced to "Much," its legacy stretched back to when the channel was still dominated by music videos, not unlike how the reality show-focused MTV continued to identify itself as "Music Television" in the U.S. until February 2010.
For channel owner Bell Media, though, the transformation is also somewhat political.
Much was one of the first stations contemplated this week in a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearing focused on the regulation of specialty channels.
The media giants have argued the licences, many whose conditions were developed a decade or two ago, need to be adapted to the 21st century.
Bell, like its rivals Rogers and Shaw, has sought to integrate its television operations with other online and mobile platforms. The recent $3.2-billion acquisition of Much owner CTV by parent company BCE Inc. has stepped up the stakes even further.
Music videos, however, are now primarily produced with free online distribution in mind. CTV asked for a reduction in the number of clips MuchMusic's licence required it to air, from 50 per cent to 25 per cent. But the CRTC rejected the request in November.
Rick Brace, the president of Bell Media specialty channels, asked the commission to reconsider on Monday on the grounds 70 per cent of Much's audience would rather watch videos online.
And, the emergence of VEVO, a website and mobile application developed by the major record companies, has been blamed for cutting into Much's viewership and advertising revenue.
What the Bell Media representatives apparently failed to mention at the hearing was CTV signed a deal last year to broker sponsorships, and provide content, to the very venture cited as the main motivation to take most of the music out of Much.
(Reuters Photo)
