The Makers: Interview with tape.tv creator Conrad Fritzsch
That music television nowadays is poluted by cheesy reality shows and ringtone ads really is a shame to me. The non-stop music channel MTV Music that you can receive digitally is an ok substitute, but when you have that running in the background you get the feeling that they are playing the same videos over and over again. Stumbling upon tape.tv a few month back was somehow like finding the holy grail. Here I found a seemingly endless number of music videos played in a row. And not only the mainstream stuff, also some undiscovered pearls that make the whole thing worth while. You can even influence the playlist by entering an artist or genre that you like.
We’ve met up with Conrad Fritzsch, the founder of tape.tv, and talked to him about music, television and Berlin. More of that after the jump.
Why Berlin?
I was born in Mitte and tape.tv is being produced in Weißensee – an honest piece of Berlin.
What are your favorite places in the city?
I love to be at Goldhahn&Sampson, tape.tv, my sofa, Vai Mo (small Italian place in Prenzlauer Berg), Picknick and in the arms of my girlfriend.
Can you imagine living in another city?
Shanghai and Tokyo are very high on my list of places I would like to live, as well as any other place that qualifies as a metropolis.
What are tape.tv’s qualities compared to other video platforms?
We are not a video database that a user has to digg through on his own, and we are not a channel that dictates the music taste of an editor. We do have music editors, but the user is not forced to hear what we want, we will play whatever he feels like.
What are your current favorite videos on tape.tv?
What’s in store for the future?
We are currently working on the second edition of tape.tv – even more simple and cut to individual needs – a smarter product. We even integrated some web 2.0 elements.
Basically we’re concetrating on the change of television consume: television moves on from a tv set to other screens. What does this mean? How does music television look like on a cell phone and what kind of product does it have to be to get back onto the good old tv screens. How do financing models look like that fit the needs of this changed consumer behavior without going on anybody’s nerves while still servicing advertisers without putting them in front of the same problems that made them move away from TV in the first place.
