These days, the devolution of music video television is a conversational non-starter. If you’re into scripted reality television, screaming for the cast of Twilight or the interminable quest to find Paris Hilton a new BFF, the MTV/MuchMusic empire has got you covered. If your tastes run to innovative videos, engaged rock ’n’ roll reporting or in-depth coverage of emerging bands, you surely abandoned cable TV for the interwebs long ago.
But lo! A new hope looms on the horizon for fans of smart music-related programming. Last November, the folks at GlassBOX Television — a Toronto-based digital broadcast company run by a pair of tech-savvy guys — launched AUX, a website that features a cornucopia of music content, from original shows hosted by Canrock vets like Alan Cross and Moe Berg to live concert footage to videos. Just over a half a year later, AUX is expanding to include a new platform: television, that dusty old medium of yore.
“This may seem like a step backward, but it’s not,” says Raja Khanna, executive producer of AUX and co-CEO of its parent company, GlassBOX, who finally got CRTC approval in March to launch the music portal as a category two specialty channel on digital cable. “Our purpose from the beginning was to build a broadcaster that didn’t care what platform it was on.”
Obviously, Khanna and his crew aren’t the first brainiacs to recreate a retro MTV model in cyberspace. Pitchfork launched their popular Pitchfork.tv site seven months before AUX emerged; a year before that, the snarklords at Vice launched the similarly oriented VBS.tv. But the fact that AUX has a strong (and CRTC-friendly) emphasis on Canadian talent opens up a world of opportunities for homegrown artists; it’s also the first of these portals to receive a dedicated home in the cable universe. (VBS gets featured once a week on MTV2, and some content is broadcast on Viacom affiliates.)
“My whole philosophy on media in general is that small is the new big,” offers Khanna, who comes across as much more thoughtful than his pithy sound bites would have you believe. “Media giants all over the world are falling because their scope is too big and their content is fragmented. As a rule, music culture in Canada is exploding, but that’s on the streets and in clubs — you just don’t see it on TV. It shouldn’t be hard to create a [Canadian music] channel that’s popular.”
Both Khanna and his GlassBOX co-CEO Jeffrey Elliott are old hands in the world of online media strategies. While still in law school, Khanna developed Snap Media, a digital interactive firm; he went on to co-found QuickPlay Media, which deals with mobile video platforms. This, he says, is a key factor in the success of AUX: “The most obvious difference is a cultural one. Interactive and social media isn’t just a place down the hall in [the offices of] a television broadcaster where they do weird stuff; it’s the core of the company.”
That background seems to lead to a greater sense of openness when it comes to creating content. One reason AUX is so exciting is because Khanna isn’t the slightest bit concerned about putting his own personalized brand on the site. (Moses Znaimer, are you listening?) Instead, he’s worked to team up with independent producers and creators who are already immersed in the Canadian music community.
A good example of this approach can be seen in the AUX-affiliated Secret Sessions at TARA program, a weekly intimate performance series at The Audio Recording Academy. An indie band plays in the school’s cozy basement venue; the TARA team records and mixes the show and the AUX crew shoots it. The series, which started earlier this summer, has featured Great Bloomers and The Ghost Is Dancing in stripped-down formats; this Saturday (July 11), nervy Brampton/Toronto indie-rock outfit Black Hat Brigade will perform.
“I’ve always had my eye on AUX, because I’m a fan of what they’re doing,” explains Secret Sessions mastermind Sari Delmar. “They put a huge emphasis on partnering with the community. I basically just called Raja up, and he gave me the go-ahead. They actually get the idea of supporting independent music, which is rare. They don’t have a huge eye toward ad buys and stuff. It’s refreshingly low-key.”
The beautifully shot live-performance vignettes that comprise Scott Cudmore’s Camera Music series (past subjects include Ghost Bees and Great Lake Swimmers) are another example of how AUX benefits by casting a broad net out to the community. Not only is he remarkably talented, but because Cudmore’s already immersed in the local independent music scene, he can showcase bands who might not make it on to the radar of more removed content programmers.
Similarly, AUX provides opportunities for artists to upload their own videos to the site — a boon for unsigned bands since, as Khanna says, “broadcasters generally get all their music videos from a few sources.” That might not sound novel to avid YouTube and MySpace users, but with the imminent expansion of AUX to digital cable, multi-platform broadcasting becomes part of the equation.
“If it’s good, it goes on the web, and if it becomes popular, we’ll put it on TV,” Khanna says. “If we find music commentary or a music-related film, we’d likely include it too. But if we found a guy or girl who was doing a good thing, we’d contact them and pay them.”
He sighs, lamenting the prevailing corporate culture. “The current definition of user-generated content seems to be like a talent-scouting thing, where companies are basically looking for unpaid labour. And there are so many people out there, especially in the media space, who readily accept doing work for free.”