CONAN O'BRIEN TO HOST 2014 MTV MOVIE AWARDS
****
THE GLORIOUS CORNER
Story By: G. H. HARDING
****
 |
| Conan O’Brien |
CONAN LANDING --- Late night talk show host Conan O’Brien will be a first-time host of the 2014 MTV Movie Awards in April, and the cablenet is turning to YouTube super group Our2ndLife for a unique series of promotions leading up to and during the event.
The broadcast is set to take place Sunday, April 13, from the Nokia Theatre L. A. in Los Angeles. The MTV Movie Awards telecast will air at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
“After eight years of intense negations, I am honored to announce I am hosting MTV’s second-most prestigious awards show,” said O’Brien.
O’Brien, who hosts his talk show Conan on TBS, has built a large social presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and team coco.com — which MTV said made him a logical choice to target a millennial audience.
On Thursday, after MTV announces the nominations for the awards, MTV will release “Nominee Rundown,” which will feature members of Our2ndLife (O2L), a YouTube comedy group of six young dudes who are managed by multichannel network operator Fullscreen. The O2L team will produce short segments that will air on MTV during AMTV and also will be made available through MTV’s online, mobile and app platforms as well as through O2L’s social channels.
MTV is funding the O2L team, which has 1.5 million followers on YouTube and 483,000 on Twitter, as talent to participate in the Movie Awards campaign, which will include their segments before the show — on TV and online — and feature them as “social correspondents” on the red carpet. Collectively, the O2L members have more than 8 million YouTube subscribers.
“The idea is to take Internet celebrities and bring them into our world,” said Colin Helms, from MTV. senior “The benefit is, we get an authentic voice — someone who is excited about our shows and content but is also bringing it to their audience.”
The members of O2L — Connor Franta, Ricky Dillon, J.C. Caylen, Trevor Moran, Sam Pottorff and Kian Lawley — came together about a year ago to form the Our2ndLife YouTube channel. All of the members now live in L.A.
The 2014 MTV Movie Awards will air across MTV’s global network of more than 60 channels, reaching more than 500 million households.
DOOBIE ANYONE? --- The Doobie Brothers are out to prove how much their classic rock has been an influence on modern country with a duets album featuring some of the band’s biggest hits.
Billboard reports that Doobies Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons and John McFee were joined by Brad Paisley, Sara Evans and Chris Young during a Sony Music Nashville show on the General Jackson showboat to announce the new project.
Johnston told the magazine that he was humbled by the number of country artists that are into the Doobie’s music. “The Doobies cover a wide swath musically. We’re an American band. We cover everything from blues and R&B to bluegrass, and even a little bit country. At the same time we do rock and roll and these days it seems country has adopted a good bit of rock and roll to go along with the country style of singing and the banjo and pedal steel. It all works together and I think it’s fascinating.”
Also joining in the project is former member Michael McDonald (1975 to 1982, 1987, 1995 to 1998, 2007 to 2010) although it was not made clear if he was pairing with the band on just one cut or would participate in the whole album.
Along with Paisley, Evans and Young, other artists mentioned for the project are Zac Brown, Toby Keith, Love and Theft and Jerrod Niemann.
CLOSING NOTES --- Bruce Springsteen, performing in Australia, began his show with a somewhat acoustic, re-worked version of The Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive." Just brilliant if you ask me. The horns were simply splendid. According to sources, Barry Gibb LOVED it!
Author Mark Bego’s birthday party for Surpeme-Mary Wilson Monday night, brought forth such names as Rita Coolidge, Lily Tomlin and Brenda Russell. Nic’s in Beverly Hills rocked that night. His next book, My Life with My Father Glen Campbell, written with daughter Debby is out next month …
Eric Danville, writer of the Complete Linda Lovelace was feted Monday night at Steve Walter’s Cutting Room. In attendance were: adult-cable vixen Robin Byrd; author Mandy Stadtmiller current host of podcast News Whore; Robert Rosen, the author of Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon; singer Dayme (now working with re mixer Ricky Crespo) and PR-pashas David Salidor and Lainie Speiser ...
Veteran-record producer Joel Diamond got into a bit of a Facebook flap with his questioning of why Pink performed at The Oscars, when they had both Liza Minelli and sister Lorna Luft in the audience. Pink performed a tribute to The Wizard of Oz, and Diamond posited why, when they had the real thing in the audience (both Luft and sister-Liza were indeed a true-link to their father Vincent Minnelli, who had married Judy Garland), why they had someone else perform it. First, Pink just nailed it. Forget all the trapezes and acrobatics … this girl can sing. Second, Diamond, who just turned 70 and had produced a record for Luft years ago that died, is not living in the real world, as Pink possesses all the talent necessary to have successfully performed in such a show. She, in fact, had the audience spellbound. The FB-responses were varied, but all agreed that Pink was an inspired choice ...
Comments