MTV Debuts University Channel

MTV has launched a new online station directed at college students. The station, mtvU, includes music videos, movies made by and for college students, games, news, and a range of other content targeting 18-to-22-year-olds. The station only works on PCs at this point, not on Macs, and invites viewers to submit their own content. In one section of the site, student-submitted videos capture short interviews with people students see as celebrities, such as Mark Romanek, a director of music videos. Other resources on the channel cover topics such as sexual health and how to get and keep a job. The channel is interactive, allowing viewers to pause, rewind, and fast forward, the way they can with TiVo and similar services. According to an MTV press release for the new station, the target audience are college students because they are “the first adopters of new music, new technology, and new trends.”

New York Times, 31 January 2006 (registration req’d)