MTV at 25: Idiots Killed the Video Star
Yesterday, MTV celebrated its 25th birthday - by ignoring it.
Instead of giving music fans a trip down memory lane - perhaps with a retrospective, interviews with VJs and bands of old, MTV spent the day at Laguna Beach. The retrospective was being held over at MTV's step sister channel, VH1 Classic.
Even the VH1 was a bit lackluster. The fete was billed as MTV Day One, but all we really got was some bimbo from the 21st century telling us what it was like back in the day and airing the crappy videos that were available back in 1981. Had those same crappy been offered up with a healthy dose of Martha Quinn, I'd be more forgiving.
I suppose it really shouldn't have come as a surprise, after all the Viacom Networks were the same cable channels that butchered coverage of Live Aid anniversary concert.
All in all, it's just another example of the cold hearted vertical integration that has taken over cable TV of late - the same mindset that allows wrestling on Sci-Fi, prevents music from being played on MTV.
Video may have killed the radio star, but it took a corporate behemoth with a brain the size of an acorn to kill a video channel.
2 comments:
Amen and amen!
Regrettably, it seems that, since MTV's target demographic is the (well) under-25 crowd, celebrating being older than your audience must've sounded like a "don't even go there." True, to some of these viewers, Madonna is "an old bag", Michael Jackson is just an aging freak whose hits were before their time, and music videos are old-hat. Yet MTV seems to have forgotten that when their still-unwrinkled constituency encountered Tony Bennett, he was "COOL!" (Or "kool",or "kewl" or whatever. . .) And Big Band music even made a comeback in a new incarnation.
I think the suits in the Official Bean-Counting Department don't give their presumed audience enough credit. We who remember when it was all fresh and new could have enjoyed a bit of nostalgia; the younger viewers might have found something else "kewl" from "way back when". Devo, anyone?
20 years ago, MTV was not afraid of showcasing a then-20-year-old program called "The Monkees" to celebrate the band's 20th Anniversary Reunion Tour. Attending one of the concerts on that tour, I saw a fascinating mix of mid-80's MTV faithful (Madonna wannabes, Cyndi Lauperettes, et al) and the mid-60's Monkeemania fans who were their parents.
So when did MTV lose its nerve?
when did MTV lose its nerve? Hmm... maybe when CBS bought Viacom? I can't imagine a wetter blanket to throw on a company than the corporate culture of the Columbia Broadsting System in its current state.
If its lack of innovation, predictable storylines and copycat programming you want, CBS is the network for YOU!
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