MTV No Longer for Music on Television
February 15, 2010 • By Jeff Wade,
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Shifting Away From Music Programming, MTV Must Revamp Cutting-Edge Shows
With 10 minutes in Photoshop, MTV has finally confirmed what people have joked about for all these years. With a little bit of cropping and a little bit of one certain Jersey/Oompa-Loompa princess, an iconic logo had its growingly unnecessary attachment removed. Music Television has finally had that unsightly and dangly “Music Television” bit removed. It is now free to begin a new life as just MTV.
Now, bemoaning the fact that MTV no longer plays music or airs music videos is way too easy. It’s the comedic equivalent of shooting fish in the proverbial barrel. MTV has not been the conduit for music for at least an entire generation. The youth of today is more likely to stream a song online, download the MP3 from iTunes or actually go to a live performance.
The only real grievance in regards to MTV’s official identity change is that there is nowhere for music videos. It’s an argument that seems very compelling at first, yet an argument that the 112 million views of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video undermines. As long as YouTube is around, the art form of the music video is safe.
Sure, the several off-shoots and extended cable packages have the MTV2s and MTVUs that are still keeping the music torch burning. But for the main network, without its laughable and dubious connection to music, the question arises: Where does MTV go from here?
From its very inception, the network has been something of a paradox. Looking back all those years the premise of watching music must have seemed ridiculous. I mean, who would want to watch music, especially for 24 hours, everyday? MTV is at a crossroads, mostly due to its bizarre mix of high and low culture.
On one hand the “True Life”s and “16 and Pregnant”s of the world at their best manage to offer surprisingly insightful looks at various issues affecting young people. The other hand has the “Jersey Shore”s and “The Hills” of the world — vapid train-wreck television that keeps people watching in spite of themselves.
I can really take or leave a majority of MTV’s music-related content. I’m certainly not living any different in this crazy post-“TRL” world than I was when Carson Daly was there to tell me everything was all right and that *NSYNC was No.1 on the charts.
Yet for the bemoaning of MTV’s shift away from music programming, most of the network’s most memorable content already exists outside of the scope of music videos. Many of the most memorable shows to air on MTV fall into this category. “Beavis and Butt-head” and “Jersey Shore” are not dependent on music — enhanced yes, but not dependent.
For all the incredibly inane things MTV has aired — past, present and future — some things simply would never have existed without it. Early MTV had a flippant anything-goes attitude. It’s an attitude that gave Ben Stiller and Jon Stewart their first shows; an attitude that had a brief resurgence a couple of years back with “Wonder Showzen.” This parody of children’s television was one of the bleakest, darkest and most brilliant satires to air on any network.
Clearly, MTV used to be cutting edge in regards to comedy. “The State,” a mid-’90s sketch-comedy series that MTV ran was the funniest sketch show not named “Mr. Show.” The cast is a list of cult comedic talent: Michael Ian Black, David Wain and Michael Showalter were in “Stella”; Thomas Lennon was in “RENO 911!”; and the whole crew was responsible for “Wet Hot American Summer.” None of that would have happened without the old MTV.
Neither would “Human Giant,” a similar sketch-comedy series that aired back in 2007, showing that some of that old MTV is still left in there. It featured Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer. Sometimes the kid from “Role Models” was there. It was very funny and also on MTV.
With the network at a crossroads and looking to re-brand itself as a youth icon once again, it needs to keep one thing in mind: MTV doesn’t need to bring back videos, it just needs to bring back good shows.
Jeff Wade is a freshman media arts & design major.
Contact Jeff Wade at wadeja@jmu.edu
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