Forget MTV. Sean “Diddy” Combs is creating a new music channel with the sole purpose of capturing the attention of Millennials, or “young people” as he calls them.
Combs is launching “Revolt TV,” a network that will cross genres and social media platforms to become the premier source of music news and entertainment in the world.
“Currently, music doesn’t have one central headquarters,” Combs told Advertising Age in an exclusive interview. “We don’t have our ESPN of music, our CNN of music, our Golf Channel of music.”
The network will also provide brands with the ability to market directly to Millennials, a generation that the rapper believes is widely misunderstood by the advertising community. He told Advertising Age that music is the one platform through which young people really relate to products and services.
“If brands align themselves with music, they align themselves with the elusive community of Millennials,” he said. “We offer advertisers not only a partnership, but a way to understand Millennials. Some agencies have extremely smart people, but with all due respect, don’t know how to talk to Millennials. Just look at the name ‘Millennials.’ That name that they call them isn’t cool enough for them. At Revolt, we call them young men and young women; young people — it’s more personal.”
Combs isn’t limiting Revolt TV to just one genre of music, despite his personal background in hip-hop. Unlike other channels, Combs’ network will perfect the curation of music from rock ‘n’ roll to pop. It will also over in-depth interviews with “high journalistic standards.”
Revolt, which launches on Oct. 21, will be broadcast in as many as 30 million homes nationwide, Combs said. But he hopes the network will soon be accessed by billions globally. Over the first two years, the artist said people can tune in for “the best music the world has to offer and real-time news and interviews.” In the future, he hopes his network can partner with brands and musicians to sponsor events like festivals.
Diddy doesn’t think his network will achieve everything right away, however. As a marathon runner himself, Combs understands the concept of pacing.
“I ran the New York City marathon and almost died,” he told AdAge. “I tried to run like a two-minute mile early on in the race. I was crazy enough to think I could win. After seven miles I thought I would die, but I slowed down my pace and kept going. The first couple of miles with Revolt we want to run at a nice pace.”
