I Want My (Web) MTV

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has even more reason to be pleased, given that he'd publicly staked his credibility largely on MTV's ability to meet the aggressive goal of doubling Viacom's digital revenue to $500 million in 2007. Dauman recently announced that Viacom had exceeded the target (Viacom overall generated 2007 revenues of $13.4 billion). "Today, our digital operations have reached a critical mass," he stated in announcing year-end results. Dauman is expecting even more this year. Although he's not specific, Salmi says the 2008 target set by Dauman is "very aggressive."

The growth in part reflects the rising numbers of new MTV Network sites. Its 300-plus total sites represents an increase of roughly one third from 2006. The pace of expansion continues this year: in recent days, Nickelodeon has unveiled plans to introduce 1,600 new games this year, including 600 original offerings (not sequels or spinoffs) across its kidcentric Web sites. Companywide, MTV boasts a library of 5,000 games. At the flagship MTV channel, more virtual worlds are on the drawing boards. "If you watch our shows, you'll want to live them," says Jeff Yapp, another of MTV Networks' top digital executives. Debuting soon, for example, is Lower East Side, in which avatars will explore the music scene of the edgy Manhattan neighborhood. And the company is continuing to launch Web site offshoots of its various TV shows and brands. "We'll never be done," says Salmi. At the same time, visitors are spending more time on many of MTV Networks' sites. At its most "sticky" site, Nick.com, for example, the visiting tykes linger an average of 50 minutes, about double 2006's duration.

Salmi's anointment as MTV's digital savior seems almost manifest destiny. With his global background and experience—not to mention his derring-do pursuits and laid-back temperament—Salmi is the embodiment of the MTV Generation, an audience now spread over 160 countries. Born in Helsinki, he arrived in the United States at the age of 2 when his father, a pro hockey player and Olympian who became an international salesman for Finnair, relocated the family to New York (his mother, a nurse, hailed from a town in the Arctic Circle). After high school, Salmi enrolled in the University of Vermont on a scholarship he earned for his ski-racing skills (that's only one of Salmi's extreme sports: as a teen he taught windsurfing, favored hard-core mountain biking and craved the heavy waves and shark-infested waters off San Francisco). Ultimately, he earned an undergrad finance degree at the University of Wisconsin (while working as a DJ on the side for pocket money), then a master's degree at an institute in France. He landed in the music business in the late 1980s, where he discovered and signed the rock band Nine Inch Nails to indie label TVT Records. Later, in France, he worked for recording giant EMI Group.

In France, Salmi also cultivated a taste for the kind of video shorts that are now a Web staple (he first saw them on television there). His sensibilities were decidedly MTV-esque: think offbeat and crude, à la the signature MTV series "Beavis & Butt-head" and "Jackass." In 1994, he returned to the United States and landed a job at RealNetworks, a vanguard company in online entertainment.

The stint helped him crystallize a vision for the nexus of the Net and film, and in 1998 he put that vision into action with the launch of AtomFilms.com. "I saw an explosion of video content about to happen as digital technologies took hold and made it easier and cheaper to produce," Salmi says. "The Web was perfect for this output because Web consumers were hungry for video, but due to slow bandwidths only short videos were tolerable to watch." He made a thriving business of it, buying up thousands of short films that attracted a mass audience of downloading fans. Market researcher Forrester Research went on to describe AtomFilms as "the Paramount of the Internet."

In 2000, the Internet bubble burst, and the punishing business environment proved just another formidable test of Salmi's survival instincts. That December, he merged Atom with Adobe's Shockwave, one of the first technologies for viewing rich media. Salmi cut costs at the combined companies. "Those were tough days," says Bob Daly, the former co-head of Warner Bros. studio and an early Shockwave investor. "With the merger, Mika basically made us cash-viable. We didn't have to borrow any more money. And he also knew how to trim the overhead. He was a great salesman, a very bright and personable guy who worked hard, and didn't just care about himself."