Our last place in Bangkok, the condominium management piped in a few basic-cable channels for free including MTV out of Taiwan. That was a delight. There are lots of talented singers and bands in East Asia. It also showed a lot of music videos from the US. There was the occasional reality show, but those were few.
I returned to the US this year. What has happened to MTV? What is shown in the US is solid reality shows, and stupid ones at that. It all seems geared toward four-year-olds. Only once have I manage to find actual music videos, and that was at something like 4am, and very untalented performers.This is not the MTV I remember fondly from the 80s and early 90s.
I haven’t heard of MTV live. Our apartment in Waikiki comes with free basic cable, and like in Thailand, we’re just too busy to bother with an upgrade. I did not know MTV had branched out. A pity what’s happened to the regular channel. But thanks for the info.
If you want to see music videos, you’re going to have to wade through youtube.
MTV had a huge hit with The Real World which was dirt cheap to make and brought in oodles of money. Business decisions dictated the change and from a business point of view, it was easily the correct choice.
I was just saying to one of my coworkers today that it seems like people have been complaining about MTV not playing music for longer than it ever did actually play music.
The same thing that happened to virtually every other cable network; channel drift. The Weather Channel shows movies. CNN has documentaries. BBC America has programs like CSI: Miami.
How is making hundreds of millions more in profit stupid? Making super expensive and over produced music videos out of mostly shitty pop songs is a money loser. Would you invest your hard earned money on that?
I remember when MTV played music videos. You’d sit there and wait, hoping they’d get to that video you were waiting for. Now, you can go to YouTube and immediately watch any video you want, usually from the official label (via a company called VEVO).
I know I can watch music videos on YouTube and that there are even links to the latest ones. Just not the same.
I remember when MTV first came on the air 35 years ago. Many friends remained glued to their screen for hours or even days at a time. I would have too had I not been gainfully employed and had a job to go too. Today, I would gladly pay you to change the channel.
MTV’s time has ended in terms of what it had originally been, but such is life. Think about this: CD’s as a music medium came into existence and are now in the process of being phased out (or are in the air over the shark, about to land) in the years since MTV came about. At the very least, MTV was doing the video thing when it mattered- when Weird Al needed a platform from which to leap into the stratosphere!
They are money losers for the record companies to make and money losers for MTV to play.
Like others, I was a teenager when MTV started. We would watch all day too because of the novelty. That has changed. What kids today are going to be glued to a single tv station that plays short videos all day. They can make their own.
Havent’ you heard? it’s been years since MTV has been a music-oriented channel. In fact, the annual MTV Music Video Awards is pretty much legacy programming. Last time it aired, I could imagine some tween accidentally turning to it and being puzzled as to why there were all these musical acts instead of the usual reality shows and teen soaps.
The music videos went to MTV2. But that drifted as well.
MTV Classic has classic rock videos. Good luck finding that on your local cable system. It is on satellite though. Note the “classic”. “New” music pops up on YouTube and such.
But at least there’s still VH1 for the older music video crowd. What’s that you say?