Control Freak is also the name of a two-hour
television program featured on
MTV2 from 7-9
PM,
EST. Rather than just play a
preprogrammed block of
music videos, the show gives users a
choice of what they want to see. The music video playing is reduced in size on the left, while on the right side you see stills from three choices for the next video you might see, accompanied by scrolling titles under the stills. The idea is that you go to the Control Freak
website (at mtv2.com) and
vote for which of the three videos you want to see. As the voting progresses (the percentage points of which are next to the video stills), the leading video will be highlighted in yellow. The voting generally lasts from about a couple seconds into the video till roughly 15 seconds before the video ends, most likely to allow them time to change the tape.
Control Freak is interesting in that it brings you head-first into the battle of the music scene. When a hip-hop video, a rock video, and a pop video are put next to each other, it's often a crapshoot as to which video will be chosen. Some videos will jump out to an early lead, only to be overtaken as time goes on. Sometimes in a rejection of what MTV wants to spoonfeed you, an older video will win in a landslide, sometimes the opposite is the case. It all depends on the will of the viewers, and though MTV2 is already a fine network in terms of variety, shows like Control Freak prove that a world still exists where the fans can get what they want.