Will They Keep Plugging On Acoustically?

Is MTV getting set to pull the plug on “Unplugged”?

That’s what some management and record company sources are saying following talks with the music channel about getting their acts on future editions of the popular acoustic showcase that has led to hit albums by Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, 10,000 Maniacs and Mariah Carey.

The thinking, they say, is that the network, which prides itself on change, is beginning to feel that “Unplugged” has grown stale and that the name itself has become too much of a generic term for acoustic performances and albums.

Not so, insists an MTV executive.

“There’s never been talk of pulling the plug,” says Doug Herzog, MTV senior vice president of programming. “There’s always ongoing concern that it got so big so quickly, how do we keep it fresh and vibrant and guard against the concept being co-opted? But the show is a major franchise for us and it’s budgeted through 1995.”

In fact, he says, jazz-pop star Tony Bennett has already been confirmed for the next round of “Unplugged” tapings in the spring--evidence, he says, of the channel’s expansion of the show into unexpected territory.

Yet Herzog and others at the channel are concerned about perceptions in the industry that the “Unplugged” album concept has become a cliche--a perception, he points out, that has slowed the desire of labels and managers to score their own “Unplugged” slot.

“There have been times the record companies wanted to put out the records more than we did,” Herzog says. “But then, we’re not in the record business. In any case, there will be more special ‘Unpluggeds’ and more ‘Unplugged’ records if we’re smart and inventive about it.”

And where did the rumors of the show’s demise come from?

“Maybe from labels that were unsuccessful in getting their artists on the show,” he says.