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Aux TV Intend To Bring Music Television Back
Thursday October 01st 2009TORONTO – As of Thursday, Oct. 1 at 9 p.m. EST, the nation will once again have a “music” station when Aux TV launches via Rogers Cable.
It’s no secret that the MuchMusic/MTV Canada empire long ago adopted a less-music-less-of-the-time policy, replacing gobs of music content for youth/pop culture shows like Love Court and The Vampire Diaries. And quicker than you can say 8th & Ocean, the folks at Aux figured out that left the playing field wide open for them.
“We don’t actually believe we have any competitors to what we’re doing,” said Aux TV president Raja Khanna at the station’s kick-off party on Sept. 23 at Toronto’s Supermarket.
Khanna is quick to make it clear the Britney-fication of Aux TV won’t be in the cards, either.
“To me, there’s too much catering to the lowest common denominator,” he said. “In Canada, I think we’re smarter than that.
“We’re focusing on groundbreaking new music. If it’s great music, I don’t care who’s writing it. If the Jonas Brothers were writing groundbreaking new music, we would report on it.
“You do not have to be concerned with us featuring artists that are writing music that might be considered to be formulaic, repetitive… the same old, same old.”
Don’t expect the station to lean on the maple leaf in their coverage, either. Although they’re committed to roughly 60/40 Canadian-to-international programming, it’s not going to be about patriotism.
“There will be absolutely no flag-waving,” said Khanna. “We’re going to focus on good music that happens to be relevant to our audience.
“The reality is Canadians are interested in Canadian music now more than ever because there’s so much great Canadian music, so by default so much of our programming is focused on Canadian artists.
“That’s not a rule, though. Two years from now, if there’s no interesting Canadian music, we won’t cover Canadian music.”
The station’s content will be approximately 30 per cent music videos, with the rest of the time devoted to original and syndicated programming. The shows featured will include: Alexisonfire singer George Pettit’s half-hour interview progra, Strange Notes; Alan Cross of The Ongoing History Of New Music fame hosting ExploreMusic; rapper I.E. (not to be confused with Fresh I.E.) holding down Cypher; The Pursuit Of Happiness’ Moe Berg playing studio wizard in MasterTracks; photographer Ingrid Johannson attempting to make bands look presentable in Band Foto; and exiled former 102.1 The Edge on air personality Barry Taylor repositioning himself as the new Stroumbo on Aux Weekly.
Pettit has a clear agenda for his program.
“Our manifesto is to kinda expose the scene where Alexis came from as a band — like the hall circuit, touring in vans and slugging it out,” he said.
“People want to think that being in a band is all drug orgies and stupid stereotypical bullshit, and the reality is it’s more like being a nomadic vagrant. You tour around and sleep on the side of the highway in your van. You live on $5 a day so you can get to the next show… to me that’s the true story of most bands.”
Episodes with Cancer Bats, Rise Against, Ladyhawk, Major Maker, Constantines, Jon-Rae Fletcher and Attack In Black have already been shot and Pettit has a number more planned.
“I really want to do a Joel Plaskett episode,” he said. “I’d love to do a special on Deranged Records. Fucked Up, Julie Doiron… I’m hoping to do Moneen, Shad K… we shared a bus with him on the Warped Tour…”
Pettit says his journey into music journalism comes from an angry place, and it all began with a discussion about beards.
“My motivation for this was me being pissed off,” he said. “I’m a music fan. I’m not a casual music listener and I was pissed off with a lot of the music media in Canada — a lot of the major media.
“It all kinda started when I saw Against Me! on TV. I’m not even a big Against Me fan, but I know where they’re from, and I know scene they come from and I know they’ve got a lot to say.
“They get a five minute segment on The New Music and all they did was talk about their beards. I’m just, like, ‘This is aggravating.’ This is doing a disservice to the kids.”
Kids can tune in to channel 107 starting Thursday night to determine if Aux is doing a disservice. The channel will broadcast the Canadian television premiere of Radiohead: From The Basement at 10 p.m. ET.
Source: ChartAttack
Headline, Industry News
Aux TV Intend To Bring Music Television Back
Thursday October 01st 2009TORONTO – As of Thursday, Oct. 1 at 9 p.m. EST, the nation will once again have a “music” station when Aux TV launches via Rogers Cable.
It’s no secret that the MuchMusic/MTV Canada empire long ago adopted a less-music-less-of-the-time policy, replacing gobs of music content for youth/pop culture shows like Love Court and The Vampire Diaries. And quicker than you can say 8th & Ocean, the folks at Aux figured out that left the playing field wide open for them.
“We don’t actually believe we have any competitors to what we’re doing,” said Aux TV president Raja Khanna at the station’s kick-off party on Sept. 23 at Toronto’s Supermarket.
Khanna is quick to make it clear the Britney-fication of Aux TV won’t be in the cards, either.
“To me, there’s too much catering to the lowest common denominator,” he said. “In Canada, I think we’re smarter than that.
“We’re focusing on groundbreaking new music. If it’s great music, I don’t care who’s writing it. If the Jonas Brothers were writing groundbreaking new music, we would report on it.
“You do not have to be concerned with us featuring artists that are writing music that might be considered to be formulaic, repetitive… the same old, same old.”
Don’t expect the station to lean on the maple leaf in their coverage, either. Although they’re committed to roughly 60/40 Canadian-to-international programming, it’s not going to be about patriotism.
“There will be absolutely no flag-waving,” said Khanna. “We’re going to focus on good music that happens to be relevant to our audience.
“The reality is Canadians are interested in Canadian music now more than ever because there’s so much great Canadian music, so by default so much of our programming is focused on Canadian artists.
“That’s not a rule, though. Two years from now, if there’s no interesting Canadian music, we won’t cover Canadian music.”
The station’s content will be approximately 30 per cent music videos, with the rest of the time devoted to original and syndicated programming. The shows featured will include: Alexisonfire singer George Pettit’s half-hour interview progra, Strange Notes; Alan Cross of The Ongoing History Of New Music fame hosting ExploreMusic; rapper I.E. (not to be confused with Fresh I.E.) holding down Cypher; The Pursuit Of Happiness’ Moe Berg playing studio wizard in MasterTracks; photographer Ingrid Johannson attempting to make bands look presentable in Band Foto; and exiled former 102.1 The Edge on air personality Barry Taylor repositioning himself as the new Stroumbo on Aux Weekly.
Pettit has a clear agenda for his program.
“Our manifesto is to kinda expose the scene where Alexis came from as a band — like the hall circuit, touring in vans and slugging it out,” he said.
“People want to think that being in a band is all drug orgies and stupid stereotypical bullshit, and the reality is it’s more like being a nomadic vagrant. You tour around and sleep on the side of the highway in your van. You live on $5 a day so you can get to the next show… to me that’s the true story of most bands.”
Episodes with Cancer Bats, Rise Against, Ladyhawk, Major Maker, Constantines, Jon-Rae Fletcher and Attack In Black have already been shot and Pettit has a number more planned.
“I really want to do a Joel Plaskett episode,” he said. “I’d love to do a special on Deranged Records. Fucked Up, Julie Doiron… I’m hoping to do Moneen, Shad K… we shared a bus with him on the Warped Tour…”
Pettit says his journey into music journalism comes from an angry place, and it all began with a discussion about beards.
“My motivation for this was me being pissed off,” he said. “I’m a music fan. I’m not a casual music listener and I was pissed off with a lot of the music media in Canada — a lot of the major media.
“It all kinda started when I saw Against Me! on TV. I’m not even a big Against Me fan, but I know where they’re from, and I know scene they come from and I know they’ve got a lot to say.
“They get a five minute segment on The New Music and all they did was talk about their beards. I’m just, like, ‘This is aggravating.’ This is doing a disservice to the kids.”
Kids can tune in to channel 107 starting Thursday night to determine if Aux is doing a disservice. The channel will broadcast the Canadian television premiere of Radiohead: From The Basement at 10 p.m. ET.
Source: ChartAttack
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Headline, Industry News
Aux TV Intend To Bring Music Television Back
Thursday October 01st 2009TORONTO – As of Thursday, Oct. 1 at 9 p.m. EST, the nation will once again have a “music” station when Aux TV launches via Rogers Cable.
It’s no secret that the MuchMusic/MTV Canada empire long ago adopted a less-music-less-of-the-time policy, replacing gobs of music content for youth/pop culture shows like Love Court and The Vampire Diaries. And quicker than you can say 8th & Ocean, the folks at Aux figured out that left the playing field wide open for them.
“We don’t actually believe we have any competitors to what we’re doing,” said Aux TV president Raja Khanna at the station’s kick-off party on Sept. 23 at Toronto’s Supermarket.
Khanna is quick to make it clear the Britney-fication of Aux TV won’t be in the cards, either.
“To me, there’s too much catering to the lowest common denominator,” he said. “In Canada, I think we’re smarter than that.
“We’re focusing on groundbreaking new music. If it’s great music, I don’t care who’s writing it. If the Jonas Brothers were writing groundbreaking new music, we would report on it.
“You do not have to be concerned with us featuring artists that are writing music that might be considered to be formulaic, repetitive… the same old, same old.”
Don’t expect the station to lean on the maple leaf in their coverage, either. Although they’re committed to roughly 60/40 Canadian-to-international programming, it’s not going to be about patriotism.
“There will be absolutely no flag-waving,” said Khanna. “We’re going to focus on good music that happens to be relevant to our audience.
“The reality is Canadians are interested in Canadian music now more than ever because there’s so much great Canadian music, so by default so much of our programming is focused on Canadian artists.
“That’s not a rule, though. Two years from now, if there’s no interesting Canadian music, we won’t cover Canadian music.”
The station’s content will be approximately 30 per cent music videos, with the rest of the time devoted to original and syndicated programming. The shows featured will include: Alexisonfire singer George Pettit’s half-hour interview progra, Strange Notes; Alan Cross of The Ongoing History Of New Music fame hosting ExploreMusic; rapper I.E. (not to be confused with Fresh I.E.) holding down Cypher; The Pursuit Of Happiness’ Moe Berg playing studio wizard in MasterTracks; photographer Ingrid Johannson attempting to make bands look presentable in Band Foto; and exiled former 102.1 The Edge on air personality Barry Taylor repositioning himself as the new Stroumbo on Aux Weekly.
Pettit has a clear agenda for his program.
“Our manifesto is to kinda expose the scene where Alexis came from as a band — like the hall circuit, touring in vans and slugging it out,” he said.
“People want to think that being in a band is all drug orgies and stupid stereotypical bullshit, and the reality is it’s more like being a nomadic vagrant. You tour around and sleep on the side of the highway in your van. You live on $5 a day so you can get to the next show… to me that’s the true story of most bands.”
Episodes with Cancer Bats, Rise Against, Ladyhawk, Major Maker, Constantines, Jon-Rae Fletcher and Attack In Black have already been shot and Pettit has a number more planned.
“I really want to do a Joel Plaskett episode,” he said. “I’d love to do a special on Deranged Records. Fucked Up, Julie Doiron… I’m hoping to do Moneen, Shad K… we shared a bus with him on the Warped Tour…”
Pettit says his journey into music journalism comes from an angry place, and it all began with a discussion about beards.
“My motivation for this was me being pissed off,” he said. “I’m a music fan. I’m not a casual music listener and I was pissed off with a lot of the music media in Canada — a lot of the major media.
“It all kinda started when I saw Against Me! on TV. I’m not even a big Against Me fan, but I know where they’re from, and I know scene they come from and I know they’ve got a lot to say.
“They get a five minute segment on The New Music and all they did was talk about their beards. I’m just, like, ‘This is aggravating.’ This is doing a disservice to the kids.”
Kids can tune in to channel 107 starting Thursday night to determine if Aux is doing a disservice. The channel will broadcast the Canadian television premiere of Radiohead: From The Basement at 10 p.m. ET.
Source: ChartAttack
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