A new alliance between Yahoo! and MTV marks a rare instance in which material first designed for the Internet is making its way to mainstream television.
Yahoo! Music has entered into a deal to distribute “Nissan Live Sets,” an original online music performance series it produces, through MTV’s high definition channel MHD, The Post has learned.
“Live Sets,” the product of a multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal inked a year ago between Yahoo! and Nissan North America, comprises seven to eight songs from a featured artist, taped in high definition in front of a live studio audience of about 300 fans.
The series – which has featured performances by Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne – has been viewed over 10 million times online to date, according to Yahoo!
The deal with MTV kicks off Sept. 17 with the second season premiere of the series, which features a performance by country band Rascal Flatts, whose “Me and My Gang” was the No. 2 album of 2006 behind the soundtrack to “High School Musical.”
MHD will air a new 30-minute episode each month for the next nine months.
While Web sites are no stranger to adapting TV shows and movies for online viewing, the Yahoo!-MTV alliance reverses the standard content pecking order.
It also represents a further thawing of the relationship between the two companies, who have traditionally competed for eyeballs of music fans online, most notably in the streaming of music videos.
To date Yahoo! Music, the top-rated music destination on the Web, has dominated that business. Yahoo! claims over 23 million unique monthly visitors vs. 17 million for MTV’s music sites, which include MTV.com, VH1.com, CMT.com and the Urge music service, according to comScore Media Metrix.
However, there is precedent of the two companies working together.
They teamed earlier this year on a special user-generated content award at the MTV Movie Awards, with submissions coming via Yahoo! Music. In 2005 Yahoo! Music used the MTV Video Music Awards to launch a marketing campaign for its digital music service.