12 Angry Viewers

"12 Angry Viewers "was a television show in the United States on MTV between 1997-98. The title is a play of title of the movie "12 Angry Men". Its first host were Jancee Dunn, with Ananda Lewis replacing her later on.

Premise

12 "Angry Viewers" were chosen. Through the course of a week they would watch several "brand new" videos and vote at the end of the episode which was the best. On Friday the best video out of the four chosen during the week was chosen and put into "heavy rotation" on the network. In actuality the 12 viewers filmed five episodes over the course of one day, after being selected from a group of walk-in auditioners who did a "test viewing" in an observed room.

History

The show was on during a period when MTV was being heavily criticized for not playing as many music videos as it had in the past. In an attempt to remedy this problem, 4 shows were created that centered around videos: "12 Angry Viewers", "MTV Live", "Say What?", and "Total Request". "MTV Live" and "MTV Total Request" would later be combined into "MTV Total Request Live", or simply "TRL". "Say What?" would be turned into a Karaoke competition game show and renamed "Say What? Karaoke". But "12 Angry Viewers" was canceled.

Reasons for cancellation

Most people thought that the show was canceled because of a lack of new videos to play everyday. This is far from true, since MTV gets hundreds of new videos a week and only plays a few.

Although it had decent ratings (for the pre-"TRL" late afternoon time slot) the reason for it cancellation was because of MTV changing the music format for something more mainstream/Top 40 after years of championing Grunge and recently promoting Electronica. The 12 angry viewers usually picked the best video not for the songs but for the artistry (Portishead's Only You is a perfect example of this) leaving mainstream videos out of the competition. Seeing that it will hurt the channel's new format, MTV slowly but quietly canceled the show but not before doing special shows like 12 angry mothers (when 12 musician's mothers choose their favorite videos).

A Russian version of the show premiered in late 2000.

Videos that won "12 Angry Viewers"

* Propellerheads - "History Repeating"
* Portishead - "Only You"
* Aphex Twin - "Come to Daddy"
* Björk - "Bachelorette"
* Fretblanket - "Into The Ocean"
* Daft Punk - "Around the World"

Notes

* Even though the video didn't win the heavy rotation (Bachelorette by Björk won that week) Brown Paper Bag by Roni Size is the only video that received a perfect score.