Have the Halo Awards already happened?

Magic of Twitter.

Other photos here, here, and here with Nick Cannon.
 
     When I fist got a google alert about this it looked like the event known as the Halo Awards had already taped. Now it looks as though some of these tweet might be referring to taping a promo (commercial) for the event. Either way, I felt it might be a good time to post an entry about a growing issue I've had with Teen Nick.
     The more I google the more annoying this gets. Turns out, there was a casting call for people to act as red carpet fans for the Halo Awards. Really? A casting call!? It is logical to an extent, they probably do want it to look processional, (and lord knows us normal people suck at screaming at famous people on cue,) but would it kill them to offer some of their fans/viewers in the area to come and be a part of it? I'm sure there are tons of The-N/Teen Nick fans in or near NYC that would love to go stand outside and be a part of a Teen Nick show (or promo.) Instead they hire people to act like fans?! I can't decide if this "Oh, disconnected execs are in charge" messed up or just totally fucked up. Honestly, the latter might be better, given that Nick Cannon (Chairman of the channel, claims to know this generation etc.) is an executive producer for the event.
     I thought the rebrand was pretty ridiculous, but I also thought that they'd take the opportunity to genuinely be more open to fans, listen to their imput more and improve the channel. I feel like this hasn't been the case.
     So I thought I'd sort through the issue Gilmore style - with a nice Pro/Con list about how stuff's been going since the rebrand.
Pro: Talk to Teen Nick message board on the site
Con: Nick Cannon never reponds on the message board
Pro: Nick does sometimes respond to a few select posts in the @TeenNick Blog
Con: The posts he does respond to [in the blog] are usually very basic questions/comments (some of which really don't even need a response.) Nick never responds to the bigger questions like "Will you air shows like South of Nowhere/Instant Star/The Best Years/O'Grady/Beyond the Break that we all love ad that made the channel"
Pro: Nick Cannon has taken some initiative by being involved in new programming like the Halo Awards and Gigantic
Con: He's also been running a record label, directing his first movie, running Teen Nick, working on a show for MTV.... realistically - how can he give 100% to the Teen Nick? Maybe he doesn't really need to - I'm sure he's capable of multitasking, and perhaps I overestimate the amount of power he holds at Teen Nick? Should I be expecting this much from him in the first place?  Does this still qualify as a con? Moving on...
Con: They've yet to make an announcement about the Halo Awards on Teen Nick's website, and honestly, I think they made a huge mistake by not asking viewrs/users to nominate people they know for the awards. There's so little viewer interaction with this event, I don't see what's going to draw teenagers in to watch it anymore than they'd be drawn in to watch Oprah's Christmas special. Sure we realize doing good, is awesome and everything, but rarely do these things hold our attention unless we're given a way to directly get involved.
Con: The site's been majorly glitching on a regular basis. It's to be expected with all the changes they've had to make, but I also believe it's kind of sad that it takes them so long to fix them. It's become a matter of days and weeks when it should be hours. Many larger sites have issues and manage to fix them in a timely manner. They also have handy little "We'll be back to 100% soon" messages that keep people from incessantly posting "OMG did you know XY isn't working!" messages.
Pro: @M-A did post a Message about the glitches on the Talk to Teen Nick Message Board
Con: Because of the glitch the Message Boards were getting cut off so that over half of them appeared to be missing - including the Talk to Teen Nick board. Therefore a disturbingly high number of users never even saw his post because they failed to use the drop down box to navigate the boards.
Con: The N'Sider now known as "@TeenNick" has been posting less Goss Up Tuesdays, User Movie Reviews, This Week in Music, user advice army, general news-type entries and has instead been posting what the stars of Degrassi have been Twittering. This is 2009 - if your users want to know what the stars of Degrassi are tweeting about they can look it up on their own. (Chances are most of them are already following them, making these entries kind of redundant.)
Con: In general the channel and site have always kept their "behind the scenes news" well, behind the scenes. Let's compare it to the CW, another channel that's pretty darn Teen-oriented. For anyone of it's shows we can easily access the ratings, interviews with people working on it, commentary on what the channel's been doing for it's shows (marketing wise etc.) and easily find detailed descriptions for what new shows are in development for the channel. Granted more people get the CW channel, it's network TV etc. But is Teen Nick's smaller market really an excuse for being so closed off? Sure, if there's not a whole lot of people complaining, maybe that means there's no problem. Or maybe the lack of direct connection with their audience, letting them know that you're generally interested in having a dialogue with the people who keep you employed, will end up biting them in the ass. Few people know what the hell is going on at Teen Nick - and while it might not be a necessity to stay connected to your audience - I think it's something our generation expects. We can send tweets to Ashton Kutcher or the anchors of CNN - and actually get a response from them. Some networks might be able to get by being all close-lipped and mysterious, but I don't think it'll last to long for those targeting younger generations.


I criticize because I know they can be better. They're totally capable of it, I want them to live up to their potential. (God, does that not sound like it came from an after school special?!)