Want your MTV? Too bad ... it's never coming back

Says who? MTV? MTV does it what does because it's cheap and it has an incestuous relationship with certain magazines (Rolling Stone and US Weekly among them) regardless of their entertainment value. It's a slick con - but that's all it is. Just because MTV/Viacom doesn't want to do - doesn't mean such a network can't exist.

This is not a topic I should get started on.

 

Back in the early days of MTV, though, that channel was the standard backdrop when sitting around with nothing to do and nothing on.

 

Yep, I used to leave it on in the living room as background noise, for a decade or more.

Of course, that didn't mean a good percentage of the videos weren't shit, but even the worst videos beat the ever-loving bejeezus out of the shitbucket reality shows.

 

One other thing: MTV was always a tool of the record industry. Always. The record industry is in the shitter right now and it chooses to exert its influence through paying Clear Channel and others under the table to spin records in NY and LA. And, of course, the Disney brand owns Miley, the Jonas Brothers, and whoever else.

The success of Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers proves kids love music, and will happily veg out in front of a TV to watch it. The problem in part lies in:

-MTV execs and creative folks hate all that music, preferring music that, you know, is actually pretty good.

-MTV can't use radio station back channels to plug this kind of music because those back channels have been swallowed up by new FCC standards.

-Even if they did like the music, the artists are so controlled by managers and labels that they don't/won't do anything but the most antiseptic interviews.

The formula is still quite viable. MTV doesn't want to put the work into it.

 

If you are not 14 years old, you should not want to watch music videos.

 

Yes. Reality shows are so much more intellectually stimulating.

 

I don't watch MTV, but seeing as I don't have a stereo in my home (all my music is on my computer) the digital music channels are pretty cool. Would be nice if they were like the VH1 Classic or VH1 Soul channels I used to get.

I had VH1 Soul on all the time when I would do work around the house or do homework for class.

 

Certainly looks like they put some highly talented and creative graphic design experts to work to come up with their exciting new logo. Wonder how many months of intensive work and how much budget money it took to come up with it?

 

crop, zoom and reverse. had to be a team effort.

 

Ouch. This loser has three stereos with turntables in various states of repair, a couple old CD/cassette boom boxes, one decent digital-tuning radio with antenna and several old radios that might work someday if I get around to fixing them.

Oh, and what's this newfangled "music television" channel you guys are talking about??

 

My apartment is small enough that my iTunes, which is pretty damn loaded up, fills up the place when I have it running.

 

Loved "120 Minutes" back in the mid-to-late 1980s. IIRC, it would air from 10 to midnight Sundays (at least in the Mountain time zone, which is where I was then). I'd go to a buddy's house, as he had cable and my parents were interminably behind the times in that department. Dave Kendall usually the host, though it did bounce around a bit in the early days of the show.