MTV to air "The MySpace Chart" show

Is music station MTV still relevant today?

To answer that you'd have to ask the kids, but I certainly see a lot more interest in MySpace when it comes to the discovery and promotion of new artists. In fact, I'd nearly go as far as to say that MySpace is the MTV of the social web (although Last.FM might disagree).

So how should Viacom-owned MTV respond? By partnering with MySpace of course, which is exactly what they've announced today.

A new television show, "The MySpace Chart", will air weekly on the UK channel MTV2. And in typical web 2.0 fashion, users of the show's own website and its official MySpace page will vote on which artists' videos will feature -- 35 to 40 videos will be selected from MTV2's own playlist, in addition to five videos from less well known bands and artists. The show's website and MySpace profile will launch on March 10th and the first episode of the 'The MySpace Chart' show will air on MTV2 UK on Sunday March 16th.

"The audience for MTV2 and MySpace are incredibly similar," Philip O'Ferrall, the vice-president of digital media at MTV Networks UK & Ireland tells The Guardian newspaper.

While Dom Cook, head of music at MySpace UK, is quoted as saying:

"The way that consumers are accessing music is changing and The MySpace Chart on MTV2 brings together two of the most important forces in this evolution...

MySpace is the world's largest online music destination connecting bands and their fans and it will be exciting to see how the community will contribute to the show."

Partnering with MySpace is a smart move and further consolidates MTV's decision to close its own social networking site, MTV Flux, in January. Instead, the company is repositioning 'Flux' as a social networking component across a number of its web properties, in addition to reaching out to third-party sites in the social web (other than YouTube that is). As well as partnering with MySpace, MTV recently teamed up with Twitter to micro-blog the MTV music awards.