Interview with Xavier Campos of MTV Latin America
MVP: It’s January 8th, 2006 and we’re here with Xavier Campos who has been a music video programmer at MTV Latin America for a little over 5 years. To start off the interview, tell us about MTV Latin America and what it’s been like working there over the last 5 years and where your programming is seen.
Xavier Campos : It’s been a real pleasure to work there; I’ve learned so much working for MTV Latin America. My taste in music has grown exponentially and it’s a real solid place to work and there are great people here, so it’s definitely been a blessing. As far as the channel, MTV Latin America is one of the many MTV’s that are around the world. MTV Latin America broadcasts to everywhere south of the U.S. with the exception of Brazil because they have their own MTV, but in the western hemisphere pretty much everything south of the U.S./Mexican border gets MTV Latin America. I think some people along the border towns pick up the channel as well.
MVP: I see. One of your great pleasures is to expose cool indie rock from America to lots of people may not otherwise have a chance to see it. Would you like to comment on your endeavors there?
XC: Well yeah I always try to present cool, hip bands because I think a lot of us grew up watching MTV here in the States and I thought it was cool to see bands from overseas that you might not normally see here so I sort of have that same philosophy for MTV Latin America. The audience we target consumes a lot of rock that is from overseas and they're very open to listening to new music and I feel that even though, for example, a band might not have distribution or a record deal in Latin America it still shouldn’t limit our audience from being able to be exposed to them. Especially nowadays where you have something like the internet and message boards where people can discover and find music; it’s become a lot easier for viewers to get access to something that they might have seen on our channel.
MVP: You’ve looked tens of thousands of videos. Let’s say you have a band you know and have heard of so you can expect a certain musical aesthetic from and a band you’ve never heard of before and you’re not even sure what they sound like. Do you approach those kinds of videos differently when you go to program?
XC: No not really because I think everyone should have a fair shot. Obviously sometimes there are those unavoidable biases towards certain bands because you’ve been a fan of theirs, but in general I try to be as fair and unbiased when watching or listening to some music because if you go in with a negative mindset to a certain type of music you could really be losing out to the experience of listening to that song or watching the video and missing the potential of something great.
MVP: Well it seems as though your playlists really run the gamut of musical styles. Is that intentional when programming 120 Minutes?
XC: Yeah, I guess it is as intentional as it can be, but there isn’t a set way of programming every show.
MVP: How about when you look at a video, how important is the song or how important are the visuals? Do you give them both equal credit or quite often is one just going to be more outstanding than the other?
XC: I think there has to be a balance. For example when we accept videos we see them as a group in our music department and everyone has their opinions but I think it’s a lot easier to sell something when the visuals look good because sometimes the song might not be that great but if the visuals are great, if it’s a story behind something then sometimes you tend to overlook the song and really enjoy the video. I’ve seen some great videos that might not necessarily have a song that is going to go anywhere and you also can have a good song that has a really, really bad video. So you have to try to strike an audio and visual balance that some videos do have and many videos do not.
MVP: Being in Miami Beach must be a blessing and as of the last couple of years there’s been some drama. Do you want to talk about how you guys have been continuing to fight the good fight despite some obstacles?
XC: Well yeah, if by obstacles you mean hurricanes, for example.
MVP: Yes a big obstacle, how did you guys get through it?
XC: For example, we had our awards show that was set to air in October from Playa Del Carmen in Mexico which is south of Cancun and it was a beautiful venue with great weather plus we had an incredible line-up set to go for this show. We had My Chemical Romance and Foo Fighters playing among many others. We had Molotov hosting, we had an incredible balance of international and local acts for our fourth award show. We had never assembled that kind of talent, and it was general consensus from other MTV’s and other departments that we were going to have the best VMA’s around the world this year because it was so balanced and very pro music and our show is not like other typical award shows where there are a lot of awards to give out. I think we were giving out five awards on-air and the rest off-air. The show is really a celebration for music but then because of Hurricane Wilma we had to evacuate and come back to Miami and then the hurricane followed us back here so the whole thing was a disaster. All the preparation went out the window; it was one of those things you couldn’t control. We’ve been facing that issue the past few years but like everything else you have to roll with the punches and just adjust in order to do something special but we’ll be back. That’s one of the great thing about MTV is that there is always incredible resolve, a lot of people take passion in what they do and we’ll be back.
MVP: That is a really positive attitude.
XC: Yeah, you have to be positive because if you let it get you down and negative on something, you just set yourself up for failure.
MVP: And then you have to consider that at least you were not in New Orleans.
XC: Yeah, despite everything we were blessed, some people in the company were hurt and without water and a lot of other basic needs. I mean Hurricane Wilma hit Miami really hard, but it was nothing compared to what the people in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast had to go through, you could say we dodged a big time bullet even though we were heavily affected. I myself didn't have power or water for at least 5 days.
MVP: Tell us about programming VH1 Latin America. How has that been for you?
XC: It’s been great. In general it’s not the type of music I enjoy because the target market is more adult contemporary, you know the 25-40 range, so there's safer music. It has been a great experience because one day they basically told us "Hey we are going to launch VH1 Latin America, let’s make it happen" and we didn’t have much to work with and we launched in of April 2004 and it was with small distribution at first but as far as channels go it is the fastest growing channel in Latin America. It’s another outlet for a lot of record labels that have older artists that may not be for MTV anymore so we are giving them another option to play videos and it’s growing. A lot of shows are the shows we see here and we subtitle them and people are really responding to it. We just launched VH1 Brazil in November, so that is our baby and it’s growing exponentially.
MVP: That must be a good feeling.
XC: Yeah it is, especially when you are the one of the people setting the ground work for something that is going to be around for many years to come.
MVP: I’d like you to comment on the perception these days that MTV does not play music videos anymore. The music video is going the way of the 8 Track, though it seems to be true that more videos are being made than ever before. What are your thoughts on the Internet and the new ways that videos are being delivered to folks?
XC: I think it was inevitable. I think we should’ve jumped on it a lot earlier but maybe the technology wasn’t there and I’m all for it. As we have seen the Internet has allowed many people to discover bands that we would have never had the opportunity of discovering unless we were watching MTV, but not everybody has the time to watch MTV. So now with the Internet people can watch the video they want to watch when they want to watch it. People no longer have to keep track of television schedules and that’s how a lot of bands find new audiences. I mean just going to any one of the many MTV web sites, you can find videos readily available for watching.
MVP: If you’re looking for cool new bands to champion what websites do you check out?
XC: Usually I look on band message boards, because band message boards will have topics about other bands to check out, so it’s sort of like a word of mouth kind of deal. There is not one certain website.
MVP: How about Pure Volume?
XC: Pure Volume is definitely very good and so is Myspace, you can’t talk enough about how influential Myspace has become in the industry. There are a lot of websites out there that cater to everyone and everyone has the opportunity to have their music heard and that’s excellent.
MVP: Tell us about 2006 at MTV Latin America… I know that www.MTVLA.com is your website, anything new and exciting planned for 2006?
XC: Not that I know of right now, we did launch our version of MTV Overdrive, it’s called MTV Revolution and it’s the first broadband music channel in Latin America and it’s opening up another opportunity because Latin America is one of the places around the world that has the fastest growing broadband expansion. The distribution for broadband is really growing at a rapid pace and the technology is really catching up. It’s something we always try to champion. Our website caters to over 20 countries so we have to create concepts for our 3 feeds, but we do have an excellent online department and I’m sure they’ll come up with new stuff. We do always have audio premieres and exclusive content that’s put on the web. One of the great online programs we’ve had in the past is our ALERTA program, which is our version of MTV Advanced Warning and a lot of the indie bands that I had presented to our music department we’ve ended up championing and creating mini sites for those bands for kids to discover and it’s been really cool.
MVP: Excellent. For anyone who’d like to send a video your way unlike some video outlets it’s not just sending a beta, you want to make sure there are submission forms correct?
XC: Correct. They can contact me by phone or e-mail and I’ll send them a submission form and they can forward those on to their contacts. We accept videos and they have to be on BetaCam SP in a NTSC format. I always tell people that are sending videos to also send the music, the lyrics and a bio. It just makes it easier to have some background on bands, the bands have to sell us their video, why should we pay attention to it. If it was just me making the decision it would be okay but since it’s a whole department making the decision to include something; the better informed we are the better everyone’s attitude is towards that something.
MVP: Very cool, as far as being in Florida which seems to be the hot bed for pop punk bands and being there I’m curious if you are seeing it first hand. It seems like the kids down there are absolutely rabid for that kind of music and with labels like Fueled by Ramen the need is intensifying. Would you agree?
XC: Well yeah, I think since Florida is the furthest south I think we’ve been starved for music and I think kids are rabid because they want it. When you don’t have access to something it makes it a lot harder but it also creates a bigger passion once you do have it and I think many times states such as New York or California or even Illinois have been spoiled because when bands go on tour they always travel through those states. Even here in Miami for me it’s difficult to see a show because sometimes the farthest south a band comes is Ft. Lauderdale and from where I live on the northern tip of the Dade County, it’s still a 35 minute drive to see a show and I work in South Beach which is another 35 minutes south of where I live. In order to get to Ft. Lauderdale just to catch a band at 7 o’clock with the traffic that we have makes it impossible to see a show on a weekday. I wish that a lot of bands would come down to Miami because South Florida is such a big market, such a huge area that it’s just like comparing Anaheim and Los Angeles in California because there are so many cities over a 3 county stretch. Some bands just go to West Palm Beach which is an hour and a half stretch, so unless the band is really worth it, I just don’t make that drive. I usually don’t have the time and plus it’s a real hassle. I wish more bands would make their way farther south to Miami, I mean you have such a huge population south from where I live which is 30-40 minutes. A lot of these kids that are 15 or 16 years old usually won’t have the access to get to Ft. Lauderdale which is usually an hour drive. Many of their parents get out of work at 6 or 7, so how are the kids supposed to make the shows?
MVP: Right well maybe if we got the word out with some these kids that South Beach has the highest concentration of beautiful women per square inch than anywhere else in the world maybe we could get them down there.
XC: Yeah I think a lot of bands would make their little trip a two night affair and I think the culture is there but there aren’t the right outlets to really push the music. There are some cool places like Revolution, The Culture Room and The Factory that have been known as the rock places, but I think that Miami itself with the exception of a couple really small but cool clubs like Churchill's and The Alley. Some bands are missing a whole demographic, a whole audience by not traveling further south.
MVP: Any closing thoughts…
XC: Just keep supporting indie music and music in general. Don’t buy into the negative attitude that the media and record labels have shown, that music is going down the tubes. I think we are extremely lucky to work in this industry. I think we have to support music, love music, and let artists develop. We need to give artists a chance to really grow. That’s where you get the quality; many people have been complaining that there isn’t quality music but that is just because the bands are not given a chance to grow and really develop with experience over time. Once we get back into that mindset I think things will change and I think the fans will respond to it.