MTV has been getting steadily stupider almost since the moment they aired “Video Killed the Radio Star,” and losing viewers for years. Now, it looks like that strategy is finally paying off. New figures show MTV made significant gains in viewers for the last quarter, bringing the network out of ratings hell for the first time since August 2005. In even better news for the network, the biggest gains came from viewers aged 12 to 34, the group MTV likes to think is its core demographic. And in even worse news for the future of global culture, the ratings boost was driven by two shows: A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila and The Hills.
The message hasn’t been lost on MTV’s execs. Tila won’t be back, but a spinoff is definitely in the works, assuming they can find a host with a sufficiently wide dating stance. And a whole raft of other reality shows is in the works, including Jack My School (a student makeover show) and a hip-hop dance competition patterned after American Idol. Then there’s MTV’s virtual world, which will give people online access to a whole alternate reality consisting of nothing but crap like this. No word yet on whether they’ll follow the rather brilliant suggestion of one Guardian commenter and call the place “Chavtopia.”
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Video Killed the Radio Star was the first video ever played on MTV…actually wasn’t it the first thing they played to start MTV? Are you insinuating that they’ve always been stupid anyway? My favorite stuff on MTV was Liquid Television, Beavis and Butthead, Daria and Alternative Nation for videos. I’d say there was a golden age, but it sure passed a friggin long time ago. Now MTV is just plain painful…especially the award shows, they are even more awkward then the Grammy’s because everyone knows that most of the artists suck anyway, so what’s the point but spending millions of dollars to get stupid drunk and lose your award at Paris Hilton’s house. Sigh…whatever…
Paris, I know “Video etc.” was the first video ever played on MTV. You’re probably reading my insinuation correctly.
I was a big fan of “Beavis and Butthead” back in the day, not to mention “The Maxx” and a few others. MTV wasn’t always completely stupid, but it’s been going downhill for a long, long time.
The hell? I had a post here earlier but don’t remember it being offensive in any way.
Anyhoo, I agree, P and Mr A. I loved B&B. It was best after, uhh, sampling the herb garden. The Mrs hasn’t thought too well of me when I introduced it (in re-runs) to our (then) 8 year old. He’s intellectually beyond 8 and I knew he could handle most of it and he got a big kick out of it too.
Remember ‘The Head’? I think it might have also been called ‘Oddities’. It was so bizarre that I couldn’t take my eyes off it when it came on on Saturday mornings. I can’t really explain my obsession over that one. The herb garden didn’t play a part.
Maybe the reason I liked Beavis and Butthead so much was 1) the 3 Stooges-like slapstick and 2) it was the only part of the network that was still playing videos from the 80s.
Loved Remote Control also.
The problem was that all of these were pretty much after all the cool 80s videos had gone away and they were knee-deep into playing rap – Yo! MTV Raps – what crap.
These shows we mentioned were the only bright spots in the middle of all that rap music. Last I heard, it was pretty much the same thing as the Fox Reality Channel that is on the upper end of your satellite dial.
I want my (old) MTV. That slogan (and the appropriate programming changes) could pull them out of the nosedive and make me about 25 million on commission. I’m calling copyright on it but I’ll share with anyone who can get it to them.
I can trace my love of the Louisiana sludgecore band Crowbar back to seeing one of their videos played on an episode of Beavis & Butthead, and being impressed both by the sheer heaviosity of the sound, and by the fact that the titular pair didn’t have a bad word to say about them – something practically unheard of, in my (admittedly limited) experience of their armchair criticisms of promo videos.
Dill, the other video they loved was “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns,” by the Cramps. The title pretty well sums it up. IIRC, Butthead said, “This might be the greatest video of all time.”
I’m searching for that on Youtube as soon as I get home from work.