Grammy Watch on Palladia

Complain all you want about the lack of new material on Palladia, MTV's HD offering, but this weekend, they're stepping it up. Starting Friday night at 9pm until the start of Sunday night's broadcast of the Grammy's, Palladia HD is playing programming centered around this year's nominees.

Shows include MTV Live: Kings of Leon and Soundstage: Robert Plant.  Other artists featured throughout the weekend include Coldplay, Bruce Springsteen, Mary J. Blige, and Sugarland. I'm lucky - as a voting member, the Recording Academy has an agreement with iTunes so I can stream all the nominated songs, for free. For non-members, this is a good HD way of checking out the nominees.  --Leslie Shapiro

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Time Warner Cable, I Want My MTV

No, really, I want my MTV. Time Warner Cable is about to yank MTV, and 19 other Viacom channels off the air over a few cents.

Viacom just issued a statement saying that Time Warner Cable is going to pull Nickelodeon, COMEDY CENTRAL, VH1, MTV - all of the Viacom networks, off the air, because they refuse to pay a 25 cent per month per subscriber fee increase.  They're gonna take away The Daily Show with Jon Steward because of less than a penny a day?

In a statement, Viacom has said, "We make this request because TWC has so greatly undervalued our channels for so long. Americans spend more than 20% of their TV viewing time watching our networks, yet our fees amount to less than 2.5% of what Time Warner generates from their average customer.

Throughout the country, we have negotiated equitable license agreement renewals, or are in the final stages of renewals, with virtually every cable and satellite carrier. Nevertheless, Time Warner Cable has dismissed our efforts at a fair compromise and has effectively chosen to deny its customers some of the most popular TV shows on the air."

If this isn't resolved, Viacom's networks will shut off . . .

MTV Music: Every Video Ever Made. Ever.

This is bad. I wanted to post this 12 hours ago. Wanna know why I'm sooo late? Well, I've been busy. Really, really busy. See, MTV Music just launched, and they have every video ever made!  Well, okay, probably not every video, but almost everything I looked for. And trust me, after poking around for 12 hours, there was a ton of stuff posted. They say it's 16,000, but that number will grow.

This isn't the low-res stuff you see on YouTube. This looks great (well, as long as you don't blow it up to full screen) and sounds really good. It's like Hulu for music fans. What makes it so addictive is that when you search for an artist you like, the site suggests other similar artists. Follow it down the rabbit hole . . .

I Want My Palladia — MHD Relaunch

Hopefully more than just a rebranding, MTV's high-def MHD music channel is changing names to Palladia. MTV Networks is promising more premier, HD programming.

The new name kicks in on September 1. The old channel suffered from lack of content and constantly repeating programming. Palladia promises to premiere a different concert event every Saturday evening at 9:00pm and a rock movie every Thursday at 9:00 pm.

According to Viacom (owner of MTV,) the term Palladia conveys a sense of spectacle — a grand stage, a vast arena and the excitement of live musical performances.

Will the new lineup live up to the name?