Is rerunning Major League really more profitable than playing music vidoes?

Cafe Society
1

I’m not old enough to say, “I remember when MTV played music videos all the time.”
I’m not old enough to say, " I remember when VH1 played music videos all the time."
But I am old enough to say, " I remember when VH1 played either music videos or music-themed programs all the time."

Now, this is no longer the case. VH1 plays crap like Major League, Beetlejuice, the Godfather, and a zillion other ancient movies all the time. Why? This is a serious question–not just a rant. I don’t really understand the whole economics of music videos, but it was my general impression that studios or bands paid to make the video, and the station got to play it for free, since the whole point was to get publicity for the band. If this is the case, then playing videos should cost the network nothing. I suppose if VH1’s parent company (Viacom?) owns the rights to all the movies it plays, they don’t cost anything either. So, why play the latter instead of the former?

I have a handful of ideas:

  1. Constant reruns of decades old movies actually get better ratings than music videos.
  2. While videos get more viewers, they rarely stay for the commercials, unlike movie-watching viewers, so advertisers pay more to advertise on a low-rated movie than a high-rated music video.
  3. Playing music videos actually does entail substantial costs.
  4. Network suits are dipshits who have no clue what they’re doing.

Any answers, Dopers?

2

I highly doubt that VH!, MTV, et al get to play the videos for free.
Radio stations have to pay performance royalties for the music they broadcast. Webcasters have to pay both performance AND sound royalties for the music they broadcast. I don’t think video broadcasters would get off the hook that easily.
They’d also have to pay royalties for rerunning Major League, though, so I don’t know why they choose to do so.

3

VH1 isn’t just one channel. There is also VH1 Country, VH1 Classics, VH1 Soul, and VH1 Mega Hits. THe regular VH1 channel doesn’t need to play videos because there are 4 other channels playing music videos 24/7.
MTV has MTV2, MTV Hits, MTV Espanol, and MTV Jams. 4 more channels with nothing but videos 24/7. There just isn’t any need for a fifth channel to play the videos they already run into the ground on the other stations.

4

yes there is, those of us with only basic cable!! I want to see a video sometime this year, dang it!

5

I remember when MTV actually played music videos…

6

(emphasis mine)

I can remember when these weren’t (ancient that is).