Cold warrior made a killing with MTV

The Life: In What Makes Business Rock, Bill Roedy describes how MTV conquered the world and offers valuable lessons to any would-be globetrotting businessman. But you'll want to read it for the pop stars.

Bill Roedy´s memoir of his time as head of MTV Networks International.

Q&A: Channelling issues for youth

Last Updated: June 22, 2011

Who is Bill Roedy? He is a graduate of Harvard Business School, who fought in Vietnam and then served in Italy as the commander of three Nato nuclear missile bases. He later worked as the head of MTV Networks International, He is a former chairman of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/Aids.

How did Roedy fight HIV/Aids? As it happens, a global TV channel is a pretty good platform to fight a global virus. Plus, he was self-interested: by the mid-1990s, about half of all new HIV infections were occurring among people aged 25 or younger. "I was being brutally honest when I described it this way: Left unchecked, AIDS will kill off MTV's audience," he writes.

I thought MTV was about rap videos and spiky hair. What good can a music channel contribute to social issues? Once it had established itself as a bellwether of taste among young people, MTV held a huge amount of sway among broadcasters, advertisers and governments. It could also engage effectively with young people. It might not be CNN, but Roedy ensured MTV kept young people switched on to issues from European neo-fascism to radical Islam.

Historians in the next century may look back with wonder at how a cable TV channel that started out playing only music videos ended up a titan of global media and a force in international politics.

But that's the remarkable story told in Bill Roedy's What Makes Business Rock: Building the World's Largest Global Networks, a memoir of his time as head of MTV Networks International.

The erstwhile US commander of Nato nuclear missile bases in Italy charts how he arrived at MTV Europe in London with ambitions to gain a presence across the entire continent, something that had never been done before. And then, country by country, the brand became a fixture around the world.

To allay European suspicions that the former cold warrior was a tool of Yankee cultural imperialism, MTV Europe was ordered to promote the old continent's artists and styles to create a distinctly different channel from its US parent.

The experience in former Soviet Union countries is almost the polar opposite.

Russia courted the channel in the 1990s as a loud symbol that it was open to foreign investment. Establishing MTV Arabia required a further change of tack, with Roedy seeking a personal audience with the mayor of Mecca to convince him that the channel would not offend Islam.

And there are more than enough tales of sordid parties with rock stars to satisfy even the hoariest old rock dinosaur.

Equally compelling is how Roedy spearheaded use of MTV's unparalleled global reach to raise awareness about the spread of HIV/Aids.

There are a few errors of subediting, and it's hard to believe that none of Roedy's exploits are exaggerated. But that would be to miss the point. It's a tremendous read, and more than worthwhile for anyone seeking to understand how to scale a business globally - or even just for music fans who have laid down their guitars and taken out the piercings.

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Source: Waterstones.com

The Quote: Allowing MTV in Lithuania would be "a step towards democracy, an irrevocable step toward democracy". Bill Roedy, in negotiations in 1990 with Lithuania's then president Vytautas Landsbergis