Music missing from MTV programming

March 27, 2006 —

MTV has officially declared its "M" silent.

Seriously, MTV's music programming has been replaced with a slew of moronic reality shows ... except for last week, when MTV aired its stupid reality shows on the beach and called it Spring Break. It's pretty bad when MTV doesn't have to change its broadcast schedule to accommodate the drunken idiocy of its annual spring break coverage.

To tell you the truth, I'm pretty depressed just thinking about it. I try not to think about it, but every time I come across the channel I just can't get over how pathetic it has become. When I was a kid, MTV's original 24/7 "radio people watch" motto may have been inapplicable, but the network was still music oriented when it wasn't airing music videos. Today's MTV has absolutely nothing to do with music. In fact, it relies on its near equally pathetic MTV2 station to handle "the music end of things." Wait a second ... the music end of things? What other end of a music television network is there? I really think the MTV people have lost it.

I'm tuned into the station right now just to fuel my rage, and guess what's on? A show called My Own. The premise of this particular episode is that a college guy is attempting to find his own Hilary Duff to date. He's sitting back while about a dozen girls audition to satisfy this particularly disturbing fantasy. The girls are all dressed and singing - I use that term loosely - like Duff in order to score big points.

This show is a glaring representation of what MTV has become: dull, pompous, and bordering on misogynistic. It has less to do with music than little Miss Disney Channel Duff herself.

Then there's MTV's TRL, which is supposedly all about music. Sure, the program might count down viewer-rated music videos, but it is far from having anything to do with music.

Last time I checked - which I readily admit was a while ago - only about 15 seconds of each video was played. Even more depressing, much of those 15 seconds was partially dubbed over by the host chatting with Tom Cruise. What the heck does Tom Cruise have to do with music? I'm pretty sure nothing. I'm pretty sure he has nothing to do with acting either ... but I won't go there. Anyway, he was on TRL to shamelessly plug his most currently released film. How money-grubbing is it when MTV invites an overpaid movie star to further promote a multi-million-dollar grossing Hollywood blockbuster?

In general, the once daring network now only plays the soap opera inspired garbage it knows it can sell. MTV's escalating materialism has moreover caused the talented musicians of independent record labels to be unknown to the average viewer.

I may sympathize with independent artists, but I have nothing against truly talented artists signed with the Big Four record companies - the four major labels holding over 75 percent of the market share. I'm not a self-righteous snob who validates music in deliberate opposition to what others like. But I digress. My point is that it's pathetic how music - of all origins - has been forced off of MTV by greed.

I'm not claiming MTV wasn't always a money conscious company. It was. The network understood from the start that music videos increase album sales. After all, Michael Jackson's 1982 Thriller remains to this day the world's best selling LP ever, largely due to the release of corresponding music videos.

Nevertheless, just as it wasn't the brightest idea for the progressively creepy Jackson to publicize his disturbing all-nighters with children and chimps, it's foolish of MTV to be so frankly broadcasting its ever-increasing love of money over music.

Maybe the future will bring something more reminiscent of the days when the "M" in MTV was far from silent. Then again, soon the entire viewing audience likely won't care if the channel airs music programming or not.

In short: video may have killed the radio star, but all signs point to MTV as the impending slaughterer of music television. How entirely ironic.