How MTV Channels Innovation

The network doesn't need an innovation department, because creativity bubbles up from everywhere. One example: the birth of MTV World

by Brad Nemer

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With all of the talk about innovation, the creation of corporate innovation departments, and the hiring of chief innovation officers, it's worth noting that some companies with long track records of innovative product and service development have little to no formal innovation structure.

Take MTV. In its 25 years, the company has established the music video as one of the most bankable currencies in pop culture, put reality programming on the map, presided over the Heavy Metallization and Hip-Hoppification of pop music, and spawned numerous international editions.

Yet look at MTV's org chart, and you won't see any mention of the I-word. "We don't have a chief innovation officer," says Nusrat Durrani, MTV World general manager. "We don't even think about innovation formally as other companies do."

Lasting Advantages

Instead, the company has fostered a culture of innovation, an open and active environment in which new ideas are encouraged from a variety of personalities and perspectives. If a concept holds up to quantitative and qualitative business analysis, it can spawn a new venture no matter whose idea it was. And in fact, sometimes it's hard to tell.

MTV is notable but not alone in its emphasis on catalyzing innovation by empowering its people. Just think of Southwest Airlines (LUV), Ritz-Carlton, or Whole Foods (WFMI) as organizations reaping benefits greater than the sum of their parts in this way. As Harvard professor Clayton Christensen has written, an organization's values are among its most important sources of lasting competitive advantage.

An organization's culture may be the part of the innovation machine that is hardest to change, but the benefits to positive investment are huge and long-lasting—and even more difficult for a competitor to copy or hire away.

All Over the Map

MTV's culture of innovation stems, at least in part, from the network's eclectic hiring tendencies. One of the company's founders had been an importer of textiles. The head of MTV International is an Army man. And the chairperson of the company used to be a copywriter. As Durrani puts it: "we have a diversity of talent, backgrounds, and experiences. We bring these diverse experiences with us."

As for Durrani, he was raised in the Middle East by Indian parents and educated in India. His career spans businesses in India and the U.S., where he now lives. So it was no accident that when he learned of MTV's exploratory efforts to serve the growing Asian American community, he had a strong opinion.

MTV World began within the business development team, which had noted the growth in numbers and cultural significance of the Asian American market. To serve these audiences, the initial plan was to leverage MTV International's assets by bringing content directly from MTV India, China, and Korea to U.S. viewers.

Go For It

Durrani was working for MTV Interactive and had been brought into the MTV World planning process along with a group of staffers from around the company to vet the idea. And he disagreed with the initial concept.

The 20-something Indian American kid is different from his 20-something counterpart in Bombay, he argued, and that called for a unique hybrid. "You have to make a channel that's bicultural. As soon as the people involved in the decision-making heard that, they said: 'Of course.'"

For the next 18 months or so, Durrani had two roles: finessing the plan with the business development team and reaching out at night for input from his MTV International counterparts in Asia—and also his day job at MTV Interactive. By the time the team was ready to present the plan for MTV World, MTV's annual budget had already been set. But because the organization eschews hard and fast rules about how and when innovation happens, MTV World got the green light anyway.