Victor J. Blue for The New York Times The crowd outside a Barbra Streisand concert at Barclays Center in October.Some things just get better when they move to Brooklyn â€" Walt Whitman; Arthur Miller; the former New Jersey Nets â€" and MTV is hoping that one of its signature institutions will benefit from the aura exuded by the borough of Spike Lee, Chris Rock, Coney Island and artisanal pickles. On Monday the network announced that its 2013 MTV Video Music Awards will be held on August 25 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, marking the 30th year of that program, which in recent years has been held either in Manhattan or Los Angeles.
The Video Music Awards are a crucial display of MTV’s cultural capital, bringing together diverse sides of the music and entertainment industries, creating unexpected interactions between performers (like, say, a famous meeting between Kanye West and Taylor Swift at the 2009 show) and occasionally handing out trophies shaped like astronauts (a reference to a popular MTV ad campaign of long, long ago). But the show could use a little razzle-dazzle in the ratings: last year’s awards, hosted by the comedian Kevin Hart, were watched by 6.1 million people, less than half of the 12.4 million who watched in 2011 â€" possibly a result of the 2012 show being scheduled on a Thursday, and on the same night as President Obama’s nomination speech at the Democratic National Convention.
No host was immediately announced for the 2013 awards, which will be held on a Sunday. But hey - isn’t Jay-Z from Brooklyn
