Videos go 'live' on MTV show

It was the comeback that turned into a train wreck. Millions of viewers tuned in to MTV's Video Music Awards last year to see Britney Spears' highly anticipated return to the stage after a period of painful turmoil and near career collapse, only to see the singer flounder during her ceremony kickoff performance. The awards show itself received similarly disparaging reviews, with critics deriding everything from its Las Vegas locale to its Web-centric aesthetic.

This time around, as the network stages the 25th ceremony set to unfold Sunday at the Paramount Pictures lot in Los Angeles, executives are hoping the show itself will be able to stage that big comeback. Producers are planning to showcase the art of the music video -- the happy collaboration between Hollywood and rock 'n' roll.

Performers including the Jonas Brothers, Pink and rapper T.I. will act out "live music videos" in and around the back lot. Accompanied by a gang of scorned women, Pink will scream the lyrics from her kiss-off single "So What" from a fire escape before shimmying down for an all-out boy brawl, while T.I. will take to the city streets and preach the virtues of excess in his chart-topping hit "Whatever You Like."

The segments will then be cut down into actual music videos for rotation on the channel. Technical categories like special effects, art direction and cinematography, will be re-introduced, but the more superfluous "quadruple threat" and "earth-shattering collaboration" ones have been nixed.

British comedian Russell Brand will host the ceremony.

Of course, this isn't the first time the network has attempted to re-mold the VMAs into something that will land the kind of viewership the show once commanded -- peaking right around 12 million in 2001. (Sliding ratings for the award show only last year began to reverse course, thanks in large part to Spears' botched comeback.) But this might be the boldest reinvention yet, coming at a time when MTV's audience is far more interested in "The Hills" than in "TRL."

It could be a sign that music videos are making a comeback of their own -- whether or not they're being watched on MTV. While older viewers wax nostalgic about the loss of a channel devoted exclusively to the format, a new generation of music fans has grown up on a steady stream of music videos thanks to the advent of on-demand platforms like YouTube and MySpace. Some even argue that music videos are more popular now than they were during MTV's heyday.