After its relaunch, rebrand, and overall self-reinvention, MySpace has announced what is presumably the first of many licensing deals that will see the site offering exclusive content currently unavailable elsewhere on the Internet. Well, not entirely… you might be able to find some of those content on television. Confused? Don’t be; this is just MySpace’s new deal with Jimmy Kimmel Live, of all places.
The ABC late night series, which moved into the 11:35 p.m. slot last summer to take on the late night heavyweights like CBS’ Late Night with David Letterman and NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno, has announced a one-year deal with the reborn social portal. The agreement will allow MySpace to stream live performances of bands from the show, including tracks that won’t appear on the live show broadcast.
In many ways, this partnership is a formalization of what JKL‘s rivals have been doing for years. Both Late Night and Tonight have offered online video of their musical acts for some time, with Late Night having run its own summer concert series – Live on Letterman – for some time.
The JKL performances streamed will be from artists taking part in the show’s new summer concert series. These bands and solo musicians will perform extended outdoor sets that can last up to five or six songs, most of which are never seen by anyone beyond those actually present at the concerts themselves. Starting tonight, that will change with the webcast of Australian band Empire of the Sun’s performance. The duo are expected to perform music from their new Ice on The Dune album – which will be available for streaming from a special Jimmy Kimmel Live-branded landing page on the site.All performances offered as part of the deal will be archived for later viewing, in addition to being livestreamed.
According to Scott Igoe, the music producer and booker for Jimmy Kimmel Live, the partnership between his show and MySpace is one that will benefit both parties. Not only will the newly-relaunched site gain press and, presumably, traffic from JKL viewers from the deal but, Igoe said, “with the newly launched Myspace as a collaborative partner, we’re looking forward to broadening the scope of what we can offer to an even broader audience.” Or at least as broad as whatever currently makes up the MySpace user base.
Talking about the deal, MySpace Global Marketing VP Christian Parkes described the ABC late night show as “the go-to destination for the best music on late night,” and pointed out that “Jimmy Kimmel Live has a great track record of recognizing new and emerging talent,” something that the new MySpace is also angling to do for the Internet.
