WWW.MTV.CO.UK/MUSIC RELAUNCHES TO ENHANCE ONLINE EXPERIENCE AND REINFORCE MUSIC DISCOVERY FOCUS
London, April 28 2008: Following the successful repositioning of www.mtv.co.uk and its music channel microsites earlier this year, MTV UK is re-focusing the site’s music front page at www.mtv.co.uk/music. From May 1st 2008 the reversioned front page will showcase the depth of music content available on the site, improve the user experience and reflect the increasing trend of UK users visiting the site to discover new and upcoming artists by providing new music discovery opportunities.
Currently over a quarter of visitors to www.mtv.co.uk/music use the site to find new and upcoming artists. Other visitors search for music recommendations including Single of the Week and music news or interact with MTV’s online music community via elements such as MTV’s daily online chart. Additionally the new site will offer increased opportunities for free downloads, tickets and competitions.
A major new feature of www.mtv.co.uk/music is a new embedded media player that will offer high quality, full-screen video. Piloted on MTV UK’s celebrity site (www.mtv.co.uk/celebrity) earlier this year, the player will now be rolled out across the whole of www.mtv.co.uk. Additionally redesign also includes a larger banner area at the top of the front page to increase visibility of MTV’s own music initiatives as well as an improved advertising/sponsorship opportunity.
“Relaunching the music pages of MTV UK’s website is the next stage to enhancing the overall online experience for our audience,” commented Philip O’Ferrall, Vice President, Digital Media, MTV Networks UK & Ireland. “The site already enjoys a leading position in terms of search for ‘new music’ on Google and our continued support of bands through initiatives such as Spanking New Sessions will ensure that MTV becomes the ultimate destination for all music fans.”
MTV’s Spanking New Sessions has been one of the site’s major successes over the past 9 months in terms of artists supported as well as traffic. Since launch the Sessions have featured debut performances from artists including Vampire Weekend, Black Kids, Alphabeat and In Case Of Fire as well as classic sessions from Foals, OneRepublic, Kate Nash, Lightspeed Champion, The Courteeners, Booty Luv and Newton Faulkner. With almost 50 performances currently in the Sessions library brand new performances by Lykke Li, The Teenagers and Addictive will premiere on May 1st. With more than 50 premiere performances by new and upcoming artists planned for the rest of 2008 Spanking New Sessions is set to become a must-visit site for new music.
“The success of our Spanking New Sessions demonstrates that our audience has a real appetite for accessing new music on every platform especially the web,” added O’Ferrall. “We’re incredibly proud that the Sessions provide such an important early step in the career of the participating artists. Almost every time the Spanking New Session has provided them with their first recording opportunity - affording them a very genuine way of getting their music to MTV’s early-adopter audience.”
Since the relaunch of the site at the beginning of 2008 www.mtv.co.uk has continued its strong performance. Year to date www.mtv.co.uk has seen three consecutive months of record traffic, with page views and unique visitors increasing by 167% and 62% respectively compared to the same period in 2007. Performance in the first quarter 2008 was bolstered by the redesign at the start of the year with average number of pages viewed per session increasing from 3.8 to 5.6 for the same period in 2006. The site has also benefited from the creation of specific music pages dedicated to different genres. Over the last 6 months page views for MTV DANCE have increased almost 200% and MTV HITS by 160%.
