Sunday, February 22, 2009

MTV: Music Television ---> Media Television


It's really funny, when you think about MTV now days compared to it back around the late 90s and early 2000s. If you tuned into Music Television AKA MTV then you could expect to find shows like Total Request Live (TRL), Diary ("You think you know, but you have no idea..."), Say What Karaoke, Direct Effect, TRL Wannabes, Becoming, Making The Video, MTV Unplugged, and other shows which clearly involved music.


But ever since around 2005 or so it almost seemed like MTV should have became Media Television; since most of their music related shows were disappearing in favor of reality shows. A model which many stations were choosing in the reality TV wave of reality TV over sitcoms. many dating shows including Next, Room Raiders, Date My Mom, A Shot At Love..., Parental Control, and Dismissed. While still finding time to air shows such as Making The Band, The Hills, Run's House, Boiling Points, True Life, and Cribs among others have all received long runs on the network, many which still are airing new episodes.


Thinking of the music programs MTV currently airs, the only show that comes to mind is FNMTV. Which isn't even aired daily, and has been off season for a good while, by now. This seriously is sad. And in no way should the late night music videos that are played when little to no one is watching count as a musical program. For a network which started as putting music first, seeing them follow the reality route is extremely disappointing.


While rolling out new reality shows like The City, Bromance, and From G's To Gent's; one can only wonder if in the future MTV will regain it's mark in music television, and start to play shows with less emphasis on reality and more on music!
[General idea from T. Larsen]

No comments:

Post a Comment