Terrence Clay
2023-04-16 08:36:30 UTC
https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/12ny48r/mtv_should_give_back_its_channel_to_the/
If you've ever tuned into MTV or MTV2 in the past couple of years, you'll see it's nothing but Ridiculousness, Reality Shows, or movies (as I'm typing this, The Devil Wears Prada is currently airing). The same goes for MTV2, which is also replicating MTV's format with reality shows and films.
Admittedly, there has been no reason for me (a person in my 40's) to turn into MTV. What I loved about as teen and college student is now gone and likely never to return. But last week while suffering through the flu I decided to try to watch music videos on TV and was left unsatisfied.
I'll get into this later about what I'm proposing.
Here were the options:
YouTube: - Kind of messy. Too many playlists, and with playlists you can just scroll through the lists, but you'll just end up tapping out if it's too heavy on one genre. Part of the reason old MTV worked so well in the past was that there was an element of surprise in programming. Now, there is no engagement. Also, each video comes with an advertisement or two attached to it, but back in the day with MTV you'd get 3 to 6 videos in a row with no commercials. I don't feel like getting YouTube Premium to combat this.
Pluto TV - MTV Spankin' New / MTV Biggest Pop Hits / MTV Block Party / Yo! MTV Raps - Pluto TV's MTV Spankin' New comes the closest to replicating the 80's and 90's MTV, but the problem here is that MTV's Spankin' New rotates the same 10-15 videos for an entire week or more which is not ideal. No VJ's. The rest of Pluto's MTV channels are focused on limited, particular genres and I while that's kind of nice, what about Electronic Music? Alternative Rock? Or Metal?
MTVU - Could not find this in my cable package, or anywhere for that matter.
MTV Classic - Currently one of the lowest rated Cable channels in existence. I don't see the draw of this channel at all as Pluto TV also has individual Vevo channels for 70's, 80's and 90's. However, these Vevo channels play nothing obscure from these decades. So, if I'm wanting to go to find something obscure, I need to go back to YouTube and dig around a lot.
Which brings me to my point - Cable MTV (in its current linear format) makes little sense because the generation who would normally watch MTV in its current state is more inclined to stream MTV shows on Paramount+ or on the MTV App anyways.
The current state of cable is more appealing to my generation (40's and older) and we'd actually watch MTV if the programming was more akin to our preferences. Contrary to belief, I do like a lot of newer music, I see new bands live, and I'm fairly certain there are a lot bands that you cannot classify that would fit perfectly on a new MTV channel that went back to its roots. MTV prided itself in breaking a lot of bands, but back then the playlists were a lot larger, and far more diverse than what is being offered today. That's what made it special.
The best example of what I'd love MTV to be in linear format would be very close to what MTV2 was when it first started in 1996: No format. They played all sorts of underground bands (Orange 9mm, Cassandra Wilson, Komeda) along with bigger acts (Foo Fighters, U2, Fugees) and the results were amazing. I even became a fan of new genres because the programming was so good.
If you've ever tuned into MTV or MTV2 in the past couple of years, you'll see it's nothing but Ridiculousness, Reality Shows, or movies (as I'm typing this, The Devil Wears Prada is currently airing). The same goes for MTV2, which is also replicating MTV's format with reality shows and films.
Admittedly, there has been no reason for me (a person in my 40's) to turn into MTV. What I loved about as teen and college student is now gone and likely never to return. But last week while suffering through the flu I decided to try to watch music videos on TV and was left unsatisfied.
I'll get into this later about what I'm proposing.
Here were the options:
YouTube: - Kind of messy. Too many playlists, and with playlists you can just scroll through the lists, but you'll just end up tapping out if it's too heavy on one genre. Part of the reason old MTV worked so well in the past was that there was an element of surprise in programming. Now, there is no engagement. Also, each video comes with an advertisement or two attached to it, but back in the day with MTV you'd get 3 to 6 videos in a row with no commercials. I don't feel like getting YouTube Premium to combat this.
Pluto TV - MTV Spankin' New / MTV Biggest Pop Hits / MTV Block Party / Yo! MTV Raps - Pluto TV's MTV Spankin' New comes the closest to replicating the 80's and 90's MTV, but the problem here is that MTV's Spankin' New rotates the same 10-15 videos for an entire week or more which is not ideal. No VJ's. The rest of Pluto's MTV channels are focused on limited, particular genres and I while that's kind of nice, what about Electronic Music? Alternative Rock? Or Metal?
MTVU - Could not find this in my cable package, or anywhere for that matter.
MTV Classic - Currently one of the lowest rated Cable channels in existence. I don't see the draw of this channel at all as Pluto TV also has individual Vevo channels for 70's, 80's and 90's. However, these Vevo channels play nothing obscure from these decades. So, if I'm wanting to go to find something obscure, I need to go back to YouTube and dig around a lot.
Which brings me to my point - Cable MTV (in its current linear format) makes little sense because the generation who would normally watch MTV in its current state is more inclined to stream MTV shows on Paramount+ or on the MTV App anyways.
The current state of cable is more appealing to my generation (40's and older) and we'd actually watch MTV if the programming was more akin to our preferences. Contrary to belief, I do like a lot of newer music, I see new bands live, and I'm fairly certain there are a lot bands that you cannot classify that would fit perfectly on a new MTV channel that went back to its roots. MTV prided itself in breaking a lot of bands, but back then the playlists were a lot larger, and far more diverse than what is being offered today. That's what made it special.
The best example of what I'd love MTV to be in linear format would be very close to what MTV2 was when it first started in 1996: No format. They played all sorts of underground bands (Orange 9mm, Cassandra Wilson, Komeda) along with bigger acts (Foo Fighters, U2, Fugees) and the results were amazing. I even became a fan of new genres because the programming was so good.