Published April 26th 2016
Remember the line “I want my MTV” from Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing”? Well, in case you don’t, way back when, MTV used to be innovative, so rock n roll! They brought us music videos, and pop stars like Madonna and Michael Jackson ran with the concept.
MTV in the 80s
MTV, with the M for Music
MTV was a music station that brought us music, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They were so new, it took forever for competition to catch up and then, in the 90s, the music business changed and teenagers started spending their time differently.
MTV started to struggle for viewers. Most kids were watching cartoons and playing on game consoles in this era and MTV was focused on teenagers, so they started to lose out. In the end, the music disappeared from Music TeleVision.
MTV, with the M for Messy
In recent years, MTV have lost a lot of their reach worldwide. In certain countries, they had to give up broadcasting time to share a channel with other stations. MTV were searching and added a lot of reality series. It resembled very little of the wild, rebellious, innovative nature it had in its early days. It was clear the station had lost its identity.
Back To Music
With its own identity lost, MTV, again was losing viewers, so late last week, MTV announced it was going to rearrange its programming to put more music back in. Altogether, 14 shows will be music shows, in one way or another. Even the old “Unplugged” will make its return. The series of live acoustic performances was very popular in the 90s, even making its way on the cd several times.
While music fans are moderately enthusiastic, analysts have already spoken out it will probably not save MTV’s mother company, Viacom.
Importance Of The Music Video
It would be great if MTV would also bring back a few hours of playing music videos. YouTube has impacted the music business in making music videos vitally important again. It’s given artists an additional source of income even.
With Beyonce setting the trend of releasing visual albums, this trend is perfect for an old fashioned music station to go back to their roots and give artists an additional platform.
