Post by carlita on Sept 3, 2005 10:32:33 GMT -5
BY EVELYN McDONNELL, emcdonnell@herald.com
Dateline: NEW YORK
IT MAY COME AS A SURPRISE THAT MTV IS RUN BY WOMEN EXECUTIVES IN THE
TRADITIONALLY MALE-DOMINATED MUSIC INDUSTRY
Maybe it should be a Moon Woman.
The trophy that will be handed out Sunday night by MTV to the winners
in its 22nd annual Video Music Awards is called a Moon Man. In fact,
a bunch of women run this show - and much of the cable network: The
chair of MTV Networks, president of MTV, co-executive producer of the
VMAs, director of the show and five other senior executives involved
in this year's live broadcast are females.
It may come as a surprise to those who associate MTV with skimpily
dressed video babes, but in fact, MTV is a rare women-run pod in the
historically male-dominated music industry.
``We have a lot of women in senior places and across the board,''
says Salli Frattini, executive producer of the VMAs. ``It's a great,
diverse group. We have humor, strength, collaboration.''
Those qualities can come in handy when it comes time to sort through
videos submitted by record labels. For every strong female artist
stepping out in front of the cameras, there seems to be 20 on the
sidelines writhing half-naked.
``There are some things you know are going to be right for the girls,
there's other stuff that you know is going to be great for the
guys,'' says Frattini. ``And then there's an amazing place you know
everyone is going to love.''
The Herald recently assembled six VMA executives in a conference room
at MTV's Times Square headquarters: Frattini, Christina Norman, MTV
president; Tina Exarhos, executive vice president of marketing;
Michele Dix, senior VP music and talent programming; Robin Reinhardt,
VP, talent relations, and Summer Strauch, co-producer. (Not invited:
co-executive producer Dave Sirulnick and MTV Music Group and Logo
president Van Toffler.) Together these women in their 30s and 40s
have 86 years logged working at the network. There was a great deal
of camaraderie in the room, and no one was afraid to speak up.
Says Exarhos: ``The type of female in this company tends to be very
strong in their passions and their knowledge - just strong
personalities.''
INFORMAL MENTORING
The executives credit two entities with women's rise to the top at
MTV: the cable industry and Judy McGrath.
``The cable industry is friendly to women, probably I would assume
because in its infancy it paid less and jobs were plentiful. And that
I think attracted more women to it,'' says Norman, who was named
president of MTV in May; she's the first black person to hold that
position. ``Throughout this whole organization, not just MTV, but
Viacom, there's a lot of women in charge.''
Chief among them is McGrath, MTV Networks chairwoman. McGrath came to
MTV in 1982 as a lowly copy writer. This year, she was 49th in
Forbes' list of ``100 most powerful women.''
``I came here when Judy was president, and that was definitely one of
the things that kept me there,'' says Norman. ``It was inspiring and
motivating. . . . She was very who she was, and that sort of makes
you comfortable being who you are. And know that you can succeed.''
The women of the VMAs say McGrath has created an environment where
women informally mentor each other, are supported in their lifestyle
choices and are encouraged to pursue nontraditional career paths.
Exarhos, for example, began working at MTV in the '80s as a
publicist, a sector of the music industry traditionally dominated by
women.
`PIGEONHOLED'
``You do get pigeonholed,'' she says. ``In that profession
specifically, it's hard to break out of it. Speaking to the culture
here that Judy created, it enabled me to break out when I was ready
to. . . . I don't know so much if I'd been at another company if I
ever would have been able to make that migration to a broader role. I
think she was very aware of the bonds of women. She always reached
out to other women. There's been a culture of helping people to rise
up here.''
Reinhardt worked at Spin magazine before MTV. ``It was very male
dominated,'' she says. ``Coming here it was really refreshing to be
working for a woman. . . . I feel like she's really the one who's
positioned this company as being family oriented. You do feel taken
care of.''
While the women admit that this month, they're not seeing their kids
very often, they say that MTV is in fact family friendly.
``As women have started to have families, we were one of the first
companies I think that was very innovative about trying to make your
family life and work life work,'' says Frattini, mother of two. After
her first child was born, ``That's when I said I don't think I can do
this anymore. And instead of people just saying, `OK she's gone,'
people were like, `OK how do we make this work?' That's coming down
from the top of the company, that's our culture here: `How do we make
this work?' ''
NOT ALWAYS SO
MTV hasn't always been women-run.
Roberta Cruger came to MTV a couple months after it went on the air,
in 1981. She put together the first proposal for the VMAs and worked
in programming and talent acquisitions until she left the company
in '88. In those days, she says, the network was closely modeled on
the radio industry, and run by men.
``There were plenty of women but I would say that the highest echelon
were guys,'' she says. ``They were in charge of departments, for the
most part. The people in the second tier were mostly women.''
Cruger speculates that women rose in the ranks in part after Viacom
took over MTV from Warner Amex, in '85. ``My guess is that when I was
there it came from this model of radio and record companies and moved
into more television and cable. Cable is definitely much more female
friendly.''
Cruger is writing a book about her time at MTV. Her memories are not
sanguine and raise questions about how a medium that has frequently
been criticized as sexist can now be run by so many women. The former
Creem magazine critic recalls that in the anti-feminist environment
of the '80s, she watched women increasingly get objectified in music
videos.
``I was powerless,'' Cruger says. ``What are you going to do?
Somebody's got these babes dancing and it's Whitesnake. It wasn't
even an issue. I had to swallow a lot.
``I call it my selling out,'' Cruger says of her MTV experience.
R. KELLY?!
Those issues would seemingly still dog a network that recently
proudly announced that R&B singer R. Kelly, awaiting trial on charges
he taped himself having sex with an underage female, would make his
first VMA performance.
That announcement was made after the Herald's roundtable discussion,
but MTV's execs did address the issue of demeaning depictions of
women in videos.
``We don't make the videos here, we program them,'' says Norman. ``So
sometimes when you watch the videos you're like, `Wow, that's really
great and strong, and other times . . .''
The executives point to the role MTV has played helping the careers
of such women as Gwen Stefani, Missy Elliott, and Madonna: ``Women
who sort of grab it for themselves, and control what their portrayal
of themselves is, and offer images that are counter to other images
out there,'' says Norman.
But Cruger doesn't buy this argument: ``If they're programming Missy
Elliott, it's not because she's taken a stand on anything; it's
because she's popular.''
Dateline: NEW YORK
IT MAY COME AS A SURPRISE THAT MTV IS RUN BY WOMEN EXECUTIVES IN THE
TRADITIONALLY MALE-DOMINATED MUSIC INDUSTRY
Maybe it should be a Moon Woman.
The trophy that will be handed out Sunday night by MTV to the winners
in its 22nd annual Video Music Awards is called a Moon Man. In fact,
a bunch of women run this show - and much of the cable network: The
chair of MTV Networks, president of MTV, co-executive producer of the
VMAs, director of the show and five other senior executives involved
in this year's live broadcast are females.
It may come as a surprise to those who associate MTV with skimpily
dressed video babes, but in fact, MTV is a rare women-run pod in the
historically male-dominated music industry.
``We have a lot of women in senior places and across the board,''
says Salli Frattini, executive producer of the VMAs. ``It's a great,
diverse group. We have humor, strength, collaboration.''
Those qualities can come in handy when it comes time to sort through
videos submitted by record labels. For every strong female artist
stepping out in front of the cameras, there seems to be 20 on the
sidelines writhing half-naked.
``There are some things you know are going to be right for the girls,
there's other stuff that you know is going to be great for the
guys,'' says Frattini. ``And then there's an amazing place you know
everyone is going to love.''
The Herald recently assembled six VMA executives in a conference room
at MTV's Times Square headquarters: Frattini, Christina Norman, MTV
president; Tina Exarhos, executive vice president of marketing;
Michele Dix, senior VP music and talent programming; Robin Reinhardt,
VP, talent relations, and Summer Strauch, co-producer. (Not invited:
co-executive producer Dave Sirulnick and MTV Music Group and Logo
president Van Toffler.) Together these women in their 30s and 40s
have 86 years logged working at the network. There was a great deal
of camaraderie in the room, and no one was afraid to speak up.
Says Exarhos: ``The type of female in this company tends to be very
strong in their passions and their knowledge - just strong
personalities.''
INFORMAL MENTORING
The executives credit two entities with women's rise to the top at
MTV: the cable industry and Judy McGrath.
``The cable industry is friendly to women, probably I would assume
because in its infancy it paid less and jobs were plentiful. And that
I think attracted more women to it,'' says Norman, who was named
president of MTV in May; she's the first black person to hold that
position. ``Throughout this whole organization, not just MTV, but
Viacom, there's a lot of women in charge.''
Chief among them is McGrath, MTV Networks chairwoman. McGrath came to
MTV in 1982 as a lowly copy writer. This year, she was 49th in
Forbes' list of ``100 most powerful women.''
``I came here when Judy was president, and that was definitely one of
the things that kept me there,'' says Norman. ``It was inspiring and
motivating. . . . She was very who she was, and that sort of makes
you comfortable being who you are. And know that you can succeed.''
The women of the VMAs say McGrath has created an environment where
women informally mentor each other, are supported in their lifestyle
choices and are encouraged to pursue nontraditional career paths.
Exarhos, for example, began working at MTV in the '80s as a
publicist, a sector of the music industry traditionally dominated by
women.
`PIGEONHOLED'
``You do get pigeonholed,'' she says. ``In that profession
specifically, it's hard to break out of it. Speaking to the culture
here that Judy created, it enabled me to break out when I was ready
to. . . . I don't know so much if I'd been at another company if I
ever would have been able to make that migration to a broader role. I
think she was very aware of the bonds of women. She always reached
out to other women. There's been a culture of helping people to rise
up here.''
Reinhardt worked at Spin magazine before MTV. ``It was very male
dominated,'' she says. ``Coming here it was really refreshing to be
working for a woman. . . . I feel like she's really the one who's
positioned this company as being family oriented. You do feel taken
care of.''
While the women admit that this month, they're not seeing their kids
very often, they say that MTV is in fact family friendly.
``As women have started to have families, we were one of the first
companies I think that was very innovative about trying to make your
family life and work life work,'' says Frattini, mother of two. After
her first child was born, ``That's when I said I don't think I can do
this anymore. And instead of people just saying, `OK she's gone,'
people were like, `OK how do we make this work?' That's coming down
from the top of the company, that's our culture here: `How do we make
this work?' ''
NOT ALWAYS SO
MTV hasn't always been women-run.
Roberta Cruger came to MTV a couple months after it went on the air,
in 1981. She put together the first proposal for the VMAs and worked
in programming and talent acquisitions until she left the company
in '88. In those days, she says, the network was closely modeled on
the radio industry, and run by men.
``There were plenty of women but I would say that the highest echelon
were guys,'' she says. ``They were in charge of departments, for the
most part. The people in the second tier were mostly women.''
Cruger speculates that women rose in the ranks in part after Viacom
took over MTV from Warner Amex, in '85. ``My guess is that when I was
there it came from this model of radio and record companies and moved
into more television and cable. Cable is definitely much more female
friendly.''
Cruger is writing a book about her time at MTV. Her memories are not
sanguine and raise questions about how a medium that has frequently
been criticized as sexist can now be run by so many women. The former
Creem magazine critic recalls that in the anti-feminist environment
of the '80s, she watched women increasingly get objectified in music
videos.
``I was powerless,'' Cruger says. ``What are you going to do?
Somebody's got these babes dancing and it's Whitesnake. It wasn't
even an issue. I had to swallow a lot.
``I call it my selling out,'' Cruger says of her MTV experience.
R. KELLY?!
Those issues would seemingly still dog a network that recently
proudly announced that R&B singer R. Kelly, awaiting trial on charges
he taped himself having sex with an underage female, would make his
first VMA performance.
That announcement was made after the Herald's roundtable discussion,
but MTV's execs did address the issue of demeaning depictions of
women in videos.
``We don't make the videos here, we program them,'' says Norman. ``So
sometimes when you watch the videos you're like, `Wow, that's really
great and strong, and other times . . .''
The executives point to the role MTV has played helping the careers
of such women as Gwen Stefani, Missy Elliott, and Madonna: ``Women
who sort of grab it for themselves, and control what their portrayal
of themselves is, and offer images that are counter to other images
out there,'' says Norman.
But Cruger doesn't buy this argument: ``If they're programming Missy
Elliott, it's not because she's taken a stand on anything; it's
because she's popular.''
