by Joanna Norland
Picture the scenario: You're an ice-cream vendor catering to the beachfront market. All the sunbathers, you've found, like chocolate ice cream, but few like chocolate best. The sunbathers to the east of your stand like strawberry best, while those to the west favor mint chocolate chip; no one likes both. Do you play it safe and continue to stock your economy-size freezer with chocolate only, or do you try to boost sales by investing in a freezer big enough for all three?
Peter Einstein faced a similar question three years ago when he became president and business director of MTV Europe --- only his beachfront stretched across an entire continent, and the issue was his customers' tastes in music, not refreshment.
The channel was broadcasting standardized programming and making a profit. New national music channels, however, were beginning to capture an increased share of the market, in large measure because they could tailor their programming to regional tastes. Einstein's response was to introduce three regional "feeds" in place of the single channel --- the programming equivalent of the super-deluxe freezer truck with a bonus "double flavor" option.
That decision took "a lot of money, and a lot of courage," says Einstein, who graduated from Ithaca with a degree in business. Then again, he has a history of taking risks and reaping dividends, starting with his decision to join the fledgling MTV USA in 1982.
Having recently completed his M.B.A. at Babson College, Einstein left his graduate trainee position at Xerox to join Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, a new partnership between Warner Brothers and American Express. WASEC was offering cable operators a package of cable channels that included, he says, "a new music channel, which they described as kind of like radio on television."
Or rather, MTV was kind of like traditional television set to strobe lights and wired to a high-voltage generator.
"MTV used a fast-cuts style," explains Einstein, whose well-groomed goatee and youthful mien contrast sharply with the chaotic coif and wrinkled brow of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was his distant relative. "It's a continuous sequence of visually arresting videos, promotional bites, advertisements, and announcements. This was television without a beginning, middle, or end. You could tune in at three in the morning, or three in the afternoon, and the programming would be the same."
Einstein, a keen drum player who once served as business manager for Ithaca's Bureau of Concerts, was sold on the concept, a key credential for his first assignment --- marketing the package to cable operators in New England.
"In the early '80s, a lot of people had never even heard of music videos," says Einstein. "I'd travel with a boom box and hook it up to the video recorder to show how MTV would work. Cable operators were happy to see you because their networks were beginning to expand and they needed to fill 40 channels."
In the ensuing seven years, MTV colonized 60 million homes in the United States. Its influence was so powerful that the teenagers who gabbed on the phone, vegged after school, and zapped their microwave dinners to the beat of its fast cuts were dubbed the "MTV generation."
But too much success made Einstein restless. The antidote was to move to London in 1990 to establish and direct the marketing department of MTV Europe. MTV's first international affiliate, it was launched in 1987 by Viacom, the corporation that had bought the channel from WASEC.
"I love start-up operations," says Einstein. "I love building businesses and getting them going. This was a chance to participate in the birth of MTV once again."
The mandate was to create an MTV sibling with a distinct "European" identity and a style that would be accessible throughout Europe. "CNN simply beams their American service around the world, but we knew that MTV Europe had to be different," says Einstein. "It had to be a little more subtle, because young people in Europe are a little more sophisticated than young Americans. MTV in the U.S. is 'in your face.' It's very overt, fast, and rock-oriented. With MTV Europe, the pacing is slower. The graphics are more stylized, and we play more techno and pop."
Establishing the channel in 37 countries, each with idiosyncratic licensing and advertising requirements, could feel like a game of Twister for 37 players. In addition, a nuanced strategy was required, says Einstein, because "it's not like in the States, where a contract is a contract is a contract. In Europe, especially Eastern Europe, relationships and handshake agreements are much more important than what is written down. Especially in Eastern Europe, tying someone to a contract is nearly impossible if the relationship isn't working."
But the logistical and diplomatic acrobatics seemed worthwhile because the moment was so propitiously timed. "The Berlin Wall had just come down, and 1992 was up ahead," explains Einstein. "The idea of a unified European community was very powerful. People assumed that after the Maastricht treaty came into effect, Europeans everywhere would wake up one morning and be fluent in English, German, French, and Spanish. At MTV we thought that music would be a galvanizing, unifying force for youth. It was an idealistic vision."
By 1994 Einstein had been promoted to president and business director of a channel broadcasting from London to Leningrad. Nonetheless, he was beginning to rethink the pan-European formula.
MTV was facing new national competitors such as VIVA, which started in Germany in 1993. One reason for the popularity of these competitors was that the early 1990s marked a boom period for regionally based musicians, who could not be accommodated in MTV's predominantly Anglo-American mix. Viewers in a united Europe seemed increasingly eager to tune into home-grown sound. Ironically, notes Einstein, MTV may have provided one of the creative stimuli behind the development of local music talent. Exposing Europeans to the sound and look of styles such as rap encouraged them to experiment, he says, and "all of a sudden, you had Italian rap and French rap."
Underlying Einstein's misgivings about pan-European programming was his new take on the European Union: "The European community is an economic entity," he says. "It has had economic benefits, and it will continue to do so. But from a cultural point of view, national identities have remained as strong as ever."
How, then, could MTV remain internationally accessible while becoming regionally relevant? Einstein's answer: the channel needed to become a network.
MTV divided its broadcasting area into a northern, central, and southern feed, each receiving a mixture of European and regional programming. The project is feasible thanks to new digital satellite technology that compresses signals, allowing multiple feeds to be broadcast in the bandwidth previously required for one.
Last year the three regions began featuring different playlists and promotional features. This year the regional feeds will air different videos and will begin negotiating independent advertising contracts.
Has the regional approach fully replaced MTV's pan-European vision? Einstein counters that at least 50 percent of MTV's programming will remain international. Furthermore, he adds, while different languages will occasionally feature in regional programming, English, the "lingua franca of rock and roll," will continue to dominate.
"MTV will never be just another national channel," he says. "There are plenty of national channels out there. MTV's job is to take audiences beyond national borders and into Europe and the world."
In addition, he says, by straddling regional and pan-European music scenes, "we will be able to take some of the regional artists to the next level by promoting their videos on the European network. National networks can't do that. Only MTV will have the dual mechanism for promoting artists both regionally and internationally."
MTV Europe currently reaches over 55 million homes in 37 countries (including some as far away as Nigeria). The regional approach is being adopted by MTV's other international affiliates in Asia and Latin America. Even MTV USA may implement regional programming as it strives to maintain an edge in a supersaturated youth television market.
Predictably, as the course of MTV Europe stabilized, Einstein began to hanker for another start-up venture. In January he packed up his gear, including his electronic drum kit and headphones, and resigned from MTV. He is now president and chief executive of Showtime - Gulf DTH, a London-based Viacom partnership that is marketing a package of Western television channels in the Middle East.
The excitement of new logistical, cultural, and political hurdles leaves Einstein with no time for nostalgia about MTV. "With every new project," he says, "I always ask myself, what can I learn? And the potential here is enormous."
The most important lesson from MTV that he'll bring to the new post? For Einstein it's "the experience of working in an environment where you always have to stay on the edge, where consumers' tastes can change at a moment's notice, and where there's no room for complacency."
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