MTV still has more power than anyone to control what music will sell and become popular in this country.

by this example of how the lineups have changed, MTV cares less about music as time goes on, so popular music is just getting worse and worse as well.

sorry if i dont make sense i'm about to crash.

you make perfect sense, christina. on some days of the week, "TRL" still airs on MTV, and they push music that seems to get worse and worse as time goes on. they also influence people via commercials, music used inside their reality shows, and their web site.

in this process, the concept of showing music videos seems to have fallen by the wayside. even MTV2 doesn't spend more than a few hours per day airing music videos. maybe it's because they're all on the internet now... but i still think music videos have a place on TV.

This might be off topic, but I've been trying to find this out since the early decade. I don't have MTV 2 anymore, but when I did, I loved to watch Subterranean. Excellent show. (I actually watched 120 Minutes back when Jancee Dunn hosted.) When Jim interviews different artists, they play music in the background. There's this one song they constantly used in the early decade. I have no idea who the artist or title is, and I'm trying to find that out. There's no lyrics to the song either, since they loop the same instrumental part over and over. It's a song with a high note elecrric guitar playing about three notes over and over with a bit of a variation at the end before they loop the song again. One loop lasts about 10 seconds. Does anyone know what I'm referring to?

i agree with you and your friend how mtv is going downhill. i also feel mtv programing is all about realty shows. i just started watching the tubetv and occasionally tune in to its all music video content. have you seen it? im about as old as mtv so the closest thing i remember to all music programming was watching the early years of mtv2. but i just wanted to know for anyone who watched tubetv, if that is similar to the early days of mtv. thanks.

The greater question is whether music videos are even relevant anymore. If the commercial model that employed music videos no longer exists, then is it profitable to continue to produce music videos, even for the web?

I expect that major labels will discontinue production of most music videos, except for those released on martketed discs. As result, the artists themselves should become the producers of their own videos. Commercial software has enabled artists to produce videos of the same quality that only a network could produce in the past.

anonymous, sorry i got nothin'.

art, i have seen the tube, it's good, but i've found it to be repetitive and they don't keep up with good new music near as much as they should.

chris, you have an extremely good point; i think that may be what happens next.

I check up on your site daily, and I 100 % agree with you. I myself am a huge fan of MTV in the mid to late 90's. I remember as a kid watching it, and loving every second of it. They focused a lot more of music, and back then the main focus was alternative rock. That's what was popular in the 90's. I enjoyed the music back then, and I enjoyed the non-music programs back then. Beavis and Butthead even had their daily analysis of funny, and most of the time good music videos. I love Subterranean, because it's the last thing MTV has that reminds me of the old MTV. Shit like Laguna Beach, Maui Fever (isn't that just like Laguna Beach?), Juvies, and the consistent reality TV programs are infiltrated the company. Yet, MTV says that they "show what the viewers want." So is it that our modern society does not know how to appreciate music anymore? Is MTV just succumbing to the viewers? It's safe to say that alternative does not even exist anymore. Being from NJ, about 30 min. from Phila., we once had a radio station that played nonstop alternative music, Y100. Now that station got bought out by a rap station, and all that's left are the generic rock stations that play every carbon copy band that exists. I would even make the statement that alternative IS indie. Thank you for showing me this, because I constantly am looking for other people that remember how good MTV was in the 90's. If only they could release an MTV classic channel, or something along the lines.

Oh don't get me started. 120 minutes up until about 1998 basically shaped my early music years (I'm 26 now). Pavement, Weezer, Tool, Primus, Beck, Stone Roses, Buffalo Tom, Velocity Girl, Ween, etc. etc. Nostalgia isn't a strong enough word for those years.

I actually still have a box of video tapes of entire episodes of 120 minutes and just hours of MTV2 when it came out. I should probably get those encoded and torrented somewhere...

music videos don't rate well as a block of programming because once a video comes on by an artist you don't like, you change the channel. You, the viewer, killed the music video, and replaced it with what MTV shows now, because what is shown now can be quantified. This was not an accident. Advertising dollars are what the content you see on TV is for. Cry all you want about the "art" of music videos, but TV is a buusiness, and it's cold and calculated, and there are marketing groups and focus groups that research and make decisions based on hard numbers, and the viewership numbers are what caused the video to go away, that's why they aren't on MTV anymore.

I agree with exactly what the last poster said. MTV is just succumbing to what the viewers want. It is not a lie. The average viewer of MTV watches MTV for what it is now, not what it was before. That is why there is a constant rotation of repeats of the now infamous "10 Spot." That goes for MTV 2 as well. MTV 2 was the outlet for MTV watchers, they could get the music videos there. What happens? Comcast cable, and other big cable networks that offer all of the extra channels become popular. Thus, MTV 2 is not exclusive anymore. Turn on MTV 2 tonight and I guarantee you'll get the same amount of nonsense that is played on MTV.

Another point I want to bring up is that fact that MTV has been playing videos and debuting videos at 11 around 2-3 times a week now. That's great, except for the most part it is usually a video by a band that has already been played 40 times on the top hits radio station. Rap/R&b (I hate that name but it's called r&b for some strange reason) and pop punk are the two most popular genres of music that appeal to the common MTV audience right now. It's what they want, so they get it. Of course in a smaller dose. Now I'm not trying to be a genre troll and state that one genre's better than the other. But, overall most of the rap and emo that is being played on MTV is a bunch carbon copies that all sound alike. If you want good rap, pick up an Aesop Rock CD. If you want some good emo, Cap'n Jazz, or Sunny Day Real Estate. If MTV was playing what's left of alternative (Subterranean), it would lose most of its watchers. I have to believe and am making the statement that Alternative is now "Indie." They're one genre is the name. Alternative, Indie, Modern Rock, whatever you want to call it. MTV resists to play such a thing anymore. Plain and simple.

"...music videos don't rate well as a block of programming because once a video comes on by an artist you don't like, you change the channel. You, the viewer, killed the music video.."

So, do you think, what MTV all those 20 years, then main focus was music videos, didn't knows about problems with ratings and hard zapping effect?!...

No. They discover all that problems just at the beginning in 80s!!!

But question, why they shift focus to reality programming just now???

There is a great question.. I believe that MTV saw the sudden grow and outbreak of reality television, and they marketed upon it. I don't have a problem with the Real World or Road Rules, they're classics. But shows like Maui Fever, Laguna Beach, Engaged and Underaged, and other crap that doesn't belong on there anymore. True Life is the one of the ONLY MTV shows that are still on that I love, but besides that MTV has just killed itself. The worst is Sweet Sixteen though. What were they thinking? I honestly believe MTV has its head in its ass, and it would take a lot of convincing to show it otherwise.

Wow, this is amazing, the comparison between the years. I stopped paying attention years ago, but I never realized it got THIS bad.

it's all about the ratings. in order to get more viewers, MTV abandoned any remaining notion that they might still care about music.

also, I think there is a major shift in the distribution of music videos in recent years. people are much less patient; they're not going to sit around for hours waiting for a video on any TV channel. they will go watch it online on-demand.

I live in Colombia, where I have to watch MTV Latino. And believe me, it's worst than the english one: the shows are bad remakes of the same realities that you can see in the US (yes, it's posibble to make them worst!), but in this case, they sell a 'latino stereotype', full of 'rumba' and 'reaggeton' music (is it real music?).

Great write up. As someone who grew up on mtv and became addicted to 120 minutes in the 80's to watch it be cut 60 minutes (with 25 minutes of commercials that make you want to bang your head against the wall) and hidden on mtv2 in the wee hours on Sunday night is a damn shame. Fortunately I have Tivo to record subterranean on Sunday nights and to have this site for insight.

Another great source of new music, which I've been addicted to for the last year, is Sirius satellite radio - channel 26 - left of center (matt pinfield has his own show).

Good listening.

the gay 90's?

Great article!