Music Television: the Transition from MTV to eMpTy-V

Back in 1977, Warner Amex Cable launched an interactive cable system called QUBE. One of QUBE's specialized channels was called Sight on Sound, a music-oriented program where viewers could vote for their favorite artists and songs to be played on the channel. Sight on Sound's popularity skyrocketed and Warner decided to expand the program to other cable networks, after redubbing it "Music Television" and switching to a music video format. Starting at midnight on August 1, 1981, MTV momentously launched with the words "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll" (spoken by one of the channel's creators, John Lack) followed by the original MTV theme song played in conjunction with a montage of the Apollo 11 moon landing.






Then, the first music video came on: "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles....and the rest was history.



MTV's early format was based on Top 40 radio - young, hip VJs were hired to introduce the new videos as they came on, alternating with silent black pauses as one of the employees put in a new VHS. Since cable was just becoming popular and easily available nationwide, most artists hadn't started making music videos. The early material played on the channel mostly consisted of concert footage and promo clips. In these initial golden days, MTV made a huge impact on the music was promoted and popularized. Bands like Duran Duran, U2, Peter Gabriel, Madonna, and Prince became enormously famous due in part to the channel's public exposure. In 1983, Michael Jackson became the first black star of MTV with his 17-minute long video for "Thriller"...at its peak popularity, it played twice an hour in the normal video rotation. MTV revolutionized the social aspect of the music industry in that it provided a central hub or outlet for artists and fans to create, promote, distribute, and exchange music news.




But by 1984, some negative sides to MTV began to show themselves. The channel came under heavy public criticism for 'excessive pornographic references', thanks to racy videos like Madonna's ever-popular "Like a Virgin". The channel also launched the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984, which were widely perceived as self-indulgent, pretentious, and unnecessary at the time. It got to the point where, in 1985, the Dead Kennedys released a song entitled "MTV - Get Off the Air".




Additionally, the advent of the music video took the emphasis off the actual quality of the music and more on aesthetically pleasing visuals. Therefore, artists that didn't produce music videos or made some that were not as publicly appealling and marketable were at an automatic disadvantage from the rest of the music industry that did. (Which by the way is ridiculous because even though a music video can be a valuable tool to interpreting the message of a song, it's still meant to be a supplement to the music and not a replacement.)




MTV execs began to pick up on two things: 1) nationwide popularity of the music played on the channel had less and less to do with the original recognition of the song (i.e. MTV plays it because it's famous and everyone likes it) - and more and more to do with the idea that the music was popular because MTV played it. Yes, the channel's influence was such that they could start to DICTATE to the public what they were going to like.

And 2) MTV's 13-28 audience consisted largely of a bunch of musically pushover, lemming-like individuals who let MTV tell them what music to like and what lifestyle to live in order to be cool. The execs quickly capitalized on these discoveries by adopting the catchy, mind-sticking motto "I want my MTV" and coming up with new, creative ways to tell these "cable brats" how to live: reality shows.




MTV's first reality show, The Real World, aired in 1992. It was hugely popular and by the mid 1990s, the majority of the channel's programming centered around non-musically-based television. Realizing how far they were straying from their original objective, MTV executives launched MTV2 in August 1996. This alternative channel was supposed to provide non-stop, commercial-free music videos...but eventually got taken over by the same mind-numbing but money-making reality bullshit that infected the original MTV. The channel also attempted to positively politically educate its viewers with shows like P. Diddy's 2004 Rock the Vote Campaign, where celebrities encouraged viewers to register and vote in the 2004 presidential election. However, any positive messages created by that were negated by the fact that half the celebrities featured, like Paris Hilton and 50 Cent, never registered to vote. Now, the channel features everything from The Hills (scripted high-school-esque drama) to My Super Sweet Sixteen (spoiled brats throwing hissy fits if they don't get the color Lamborghini they wanted for their birthday) to A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila (a bisexual Myspace whore hooks up with chicks and dicks under the ruse of "finding love"). In essence, the epitome of what my mother delicately terms "Smut TV". The moral and ethical messages projected by modern MTV onto today's impressionable youth is breathtakingly disgusting...and the channel reaches 264 million households worldwide.



What happened to MTV? It started as a fresh, fun, original concept that was going places. Finally, America's music afficionados breathed a sigh of relief as a national music appreciation and promotion platform was established. And now....it's evolved into this:




Can we fix this? How can we bring back the old MTV and accomplish what it originally set out to do?