Starting Aug. 31, MuchMusic’s digital stations will be commercial-free 24 hours a day. The move means MuchVibe, MuchLOUD, PunchMuch and MuchMoreRetro will no longer carry advertisements, though brand integration and sponsorship will still be available.

‘Music videos now are available in so many different places and so many different platforms, you need to really connect your content with your audience in different ways than you have before,’ says Brad Schwartz, VP and general manager of Much MTV Group, of the decision to go commercial-free. ‘It will be a better product for our audience. It will be a better product for our distribution partners to offer. We felt that if we engage more people with these channels, that that would push them to other areas of our company, like online and the main MuchMusic channel.’

Regular advertisers on the digital channels will see their spots moved to MuchMusic’s other offerings. ‘All of our advertisers on our digital channels work with us across all of our other platforms,’ says Schwartz. ‘We’ll just move them around into other areas of our company.’

While commercials will be removed, the broadcaster will increase the amount of integration on the stations. ‘Our brand partnership team works really closely with all of our clients to integrate our partners into our environment in very creative ways. With these channels creating a more engaged and passionate connection to the audience, we’ll be able to offer that connection to advertisers and create new advertising models and new customized opportunities around these channels,’ Schwartz tells MiC.

MuchVibe, MuchLOUD and PunchMuch target the 12-to-34 demographic. MuchMoreRetro targets the 18-to-49 demographic. All of the stations reach between 500,000 and one million homes.

www.muchvibe.ca  
www.muchloud.ca  
www.punchmuch.ca  
www.muchmoreretro.com