Mika Salmi

April 2007

By Mansha Daswani

Studies have shown that teens and young adults are increasingly consuming media on every platform possible, from watching clips on their cell phones to downloading full-length episodes online. As such, it’s no wonder that MTV Networks, home to some of the top kids’, teen and young-adult brands in the world, has ramped up its digital activities. In November, the company named Mika Salmi, the founder of Atom Entertainment—now owned by Viacom—as its president of global digital media, putting him in charge of well over 100 interactive assets worldwide, from ad-supported streaming services to virtual worlds to show-specific websites.

WS: What has been your strategy for all of MTV Networks’ digital assets?

SALMI: The company has well over 150 websites. The TV channels are in 162 countries, reaching [496.1 million homes]. We have [more than 60] mobile-operator deals. You look at that and think, how am I going to take advantage of this? I personally believe that the web has moved away from aggregation strategies. It’s not about putting it all together in one place. I’m fairly anti-portal, [because] consumers are finding content on the web, and more and more on mobile, in a nonlinear fashion. They’re generally using search to find what they’re looking for, rather than following links. What this means is that people come to the content they consume through thousands of doors. We had all these brands and platforms and websites, but they were all in silos on their own, they weren’t really interlinked, and they didn’t take advantage of the fact that consumers are finding things through these thousands of doors. What we’ve been working on is a platform and also a philosophy called Atlas. Atlas is a way for us to connect the content across all these platforms, and to connect the platforms themselves, to have a more meaningful TV-to-web and web-to-mobile connection and then connect the people, the community. They don’t just have to be involved in MTV.com or Nickelodeon.com, they can go deeper. We’re building more websites and more experiences for the consumer.

WS: You recently made your content available for streaming on Joost. What led to that decision?

SALMI: Part of what we’re doing with this Atlas platform is that we want to make sure we are where the consumers are. We can’t be so arrogant and think that they have to come just to us. We think Joost is going to be a platform people will use.

WS: Given how many platforms are on the market today, how do you decide with whom to partner?

SALMI: We can’t do every deal that’s out there. It’s a combination of, do we think this is a platform that people will use, will it reach a large enough audience to justify our investment, and is it a deal structure that works for both parties?

WS: Viacom pulled all of its content off of YouTube, and I understand traffic to your sites increased.

SALMI: Yes, it has. Of the three things I just mentioned, the first point is the technology platform, and they qualified for that, and then a large enough reach, they qualified for that. But the deal structure, we fell apart on that piece of the criteria.

WS: What role is user-generated content playing?

SALMI: For some of our properties, we’re using it as a way to discover talent. And for the larger brands, user-generated is interesting where we allow viewers to add to [the TV content]. Even people getting involved in virtual worlds—that is all user generated. It allows the user to [have a better connection with] our products and our brand. That’s a very important metric for us: user engagement.

WS: Are you looking at more third-party acquisitions?

SALMI: We are going to grow [our digital-media portfolio] through some acquisitions. We’ve also launched some targeted websites—for example, for our shows Headbangers Ball and MTV Style. We’re going to be expanding in that sense also.

WS: What are you bringing from your experience at Atom Entertainment to your position now within a larger company?

SALMI: I have a web sensibility, and I’m very consumer focused. Generally, media companies don’t talk to their consumers directly so much. That’s what I’ve been doing, not just in my eight years at Atom, but also before that—I’ve been involved with web businesses for 12 years. They’ve also said about me that I bring an entrepreneurial spirit—I think that means a bit of a different style of doing things! I had four brands at Atom, and the goal was to have more, and now I have more! I find that very exciting.