But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Freston asserts that mass media is facing a more prolonged period of adjustment, one that will extend beyond the immediate re-editing of new television shows to remove images of the World Trade Center or questionable storylines. An era of gentler, warmer entertainment is at hand, Freston predicts. “Where is the bottom going to be in terms of pop music and ‘Fear Factor’ on television,” he asked rhetorically. The narcissistic tone in pop culture-“my desire, my problems, my possessions; sensationalistic”-is coming to an end, he predicts, adding: “That kind of party is over.” In music, there will be a reemergence of songs that offer a sense of community or spiritual and social purpose. “We will begin to see more of that now,” Freston says. “Artists in the music world have pretty good instincts.”
Beyond the predictions about the course of music, entertainment companies generally aren’t yet certain about what direction to go. “We don’t know where we are going,” he said. “There are a lot of discussions. We are all looking at what we are making.”
As much as any single individual, Freston has had an unparalleled impact on the tonal direction of pop culture in the past 20 years. He was one of a small, youthful band of visionaries that in 1981 launched MTV, one of the world’s most powerful entertainment brands, which now reaches 79 million of the nation’s 100 million homes. Another 305 million of its viewers are scattered around the globe. It is the flagship of a family of cable networks that includes Nickelodeon, VH1, Nick at Nite, TV Land, Comedy Central and TNN. To an immeasurable degree, the music and lifestyle network has set the tone of pop culture-from the crude and rude “Beavis and Butthead” and the outlandish comedy of Tom Green to the violence of “Celebrity Deathmatch” and the pioneering reality-TV show “The Real World.” Over the years, television critics and social conservatives have attacked MTV programming. “We might have seen an end to a certain cycle” of programming, " says Freston.
All this week, cultural commentators, the literati and arbiters of pop culture questioned what is appropriate to deliver in the form of mass entertainment into the homes of a shaken world. Some from those quarters declared an end of irony-laced entertainment. Others speculated that the days of reality TV may be numbered. Newspaper headlines ask WHEN IS IT OK TO LAUGH AGAIN? David Letterman and Jay Leno turned to the airwaves with more thoughtful and serious approaches. “Tone is really important in everything when we talk about comedy, gossip, music and television,” Freston says. “But where does that all fit in this new reality we are in?”
Within hours after the attack, Freston knew the world had changed. “We were knocked back like everybody,” he said. MTV, VH1 and other channels he manages dropped regular programming and picked up CBS News, a division of MTV’s sibling broadcast network. That allowed them to provide their audience, which is primarily 12- to 35-year-olds, access to information. “We didn’t want to look out of sync with what was going on in the country, the mood.” MTV quickly lined up artists such as Jon Bon Jovi to do public-service announcements for the Red Cross. Later, when the regular music programming returned to VH1, the mix of songs was changed to include artists like Bob Marley, who frequently sang of social injustice.
Increasingly in recent years, the entertainment industry has faced harsh criticism from social conservatives, parent groups and lately Washington over its content. Over the years, MTV in particular has been criticized for depictions of violence and language. Freston says such attacks often were unwarranted. “We felt we would be in line with broadcast standards,” he says. The entertainment industry, however, “is quick to respond and change. We hit bottom and bounce off quickly.”
