As executives try to find ways to make programmes for ever less money, ‘user-generated content’ is slowly turning television into the Internet but without the less rubbish bits. MTV Flux is leading this erosion of the already dubious quality of digital TV. And they’ve only gone and done a games programme.
Up Up Down Down is its name, and it follows the cheap model of hugely unsuccessful show Gamerweb: a couple of people talking while playing games. They sit on a sofa in front of a blue screen, so it looks a bit like MTV2’s Gonzo. But without Zane Lowe, so it’s immediately better than that.
Colin and Jon are the gents doing the talking. It’s not exactly enlightening stuff – as much about their very normal lives as games – but it’s edited and put between music videos, so as ad break flicking fodder it’s actually not bad.
I’d rather VH2 hadn’t been replaced by MTV Flux in the first place, and there was still another music channel which occasionally played something worth listening to, but, you know, you can’t have everything.