Watching popular musical groups and artists on MTV may no longer be possible for Des Moines residents since TCI’s decision to drop the channel there, but it is too early to know if central Iowa concerts will be affected, officials said.

According to Sara Huber, advertising promotions coordinator for the Iowa State Center, the impact of MTV does affect concert tours. Huber’s office books concerts for Hilton Coliseum and C.Y. Stephens Auditorium.

“MTV does play a role in this media age,” she explained. “It determines the popularity of some of these acts that come here.

“Once they get on MTV, they have automatic notoriety. It will hurt the recognition of some of the acts.”

But Huber added that it is too early to see what the effects of not having MTV in such a large market will be.

She said MTV is used as a “tool to survey” what acts could potentially be brought to Ames, and added that the Iowa State Center tries to bring in acts that Iowa State students like.

Owner of the popular Ames music venue People’s Bar and Grill, Tom Zmolek, sees the loss of MTV to the Des Moines area as a hurdle but not a wall.

“I feel bad they don’t have [MTV,] but I see it as a challenge for them to have to make their own decisions about music,” he said.

Zmolek said the video channel often “force fed” to its viewers what music should be popular.

He added that because the bands that play his venue are not “MTVish,” he does not foresee any negative backlash to the tours that may choose to play at People’s.

“It will be an interesting experiment,” Zmolek said.

In one odd turn of events, the loss of the music mogul may even help bring in one of the most popular alternative acts, Pearl Jam, to the area, vice president and general manager for the radio station KKDM J. Michael McKoy said.

“Pearl Jam likes to play cities that don’t have MTV,” McKoy, who has vowed to bring the Seattle band to Iowa, said.

“The last video they made was for ‘Jeremy’ off of Ten. They prefer people get to know their music in a live forum rather than by a video.”

McKoy is not, however, pleased with TCI’s decision to drop the channel in Des Moines.

He said the system by which promoters and musical acts decide where to tour is a combination of the radio play they receive in the area and how many CDs they have sold in the area.

Each CD that is sold is measured by Soundscan which keeps track of what CD was sold and where it was sold.

McKoy said that if a band can no longer get recognition on MTV, its records sales for this area may decline, leading it to skip over central Iowa on a tour.

“As they go down I-80, they go where Soundscan tells them to go,” he said. “If their video isn’t seen and the record isn’t bought, they may not come here.”

KKDM was the first media organization to announce the dropping of MTV by TCI.

McKoy and the station’s newest personality, Bailey 7, also organized the first rally and petition asking the cable company to put MTV back on the line-up.

TCI has yet to put MTVback on its programming roster.