MTV turns 30 years old

[justpassingthough]

Videos were a novelty 30 years ago. There was no widely available alternative delivery method. Now, if someone wants to see a particular video, they're not going to sit through hours upon hours of things they don't want to see on the chance of maybe seeing what they want.

It's always amusing to see that concept so completely ignored.

Exactly. We live in an age of instant gratification. Who, especially impatient teenagers and young adults, is going to sit through hours of music they don't care for the few they like?

 

[flashback]

^a station like that could teach them patience.and perhaps the ability to appricate songs they may never have heard but gave a chance.

 

[imhomerjay]

Wow...denial runs deeper than imagined here. Teaching patience? Really? Not really a viable way to build a business.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

MTV on life support...that's a good one. But if one wants to live in denial to try to validate being stuck in the past, it makes sense.

HAHA^ If I'm not mistaken, MTV has never been more watched than in the past few years. Shows like Jersey Shore and Teen Mom have been a boon to the channel. Rightfully, this isn't 1981, and if someone wants to watch music videos like they can go on YouTube, MySpace, their smartphone, and so on and so on. MTV would have never survived in 2011 the way it looked in 1981 or 1991. "We" may not like MTV because it was music videos and limited, generally music related, programming back in the day, but it probably doesn't matter because "we" are too old to be in their audience anyway.

They're even too old for VH1 now

 

[LibertyNT]

I am looking forward to The New Beavis and Butthead however.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

When MTV was launched, cable operators thought the Weather Channel had more demand, Weather Channel is probably more than MTV watchable now

 

[radiolives]

Im surprised they didn't run MTV 30 on MTV but instead on VH-1 Classic being called "MTV 30 on VH-1 Classic.

Also Viacom should rebrand VH-1 Classic to MTV Classic, because MTV is older then VH-1

 

[imhomerjay]

The core of MTV's audience wasn't born when MTV debuted. Time to move on. The kind of ancient stuff they dug out would have served absolutely no purpose on MTV now.

And rebranding VH1 Classic? Really? Um, no. The audience gets it just fine, and going to that effort would accomplish nothing.

 

[hubcity]

Im surprised they didn't run MTV 30 on MTV but instead on VH-1 Classic being called "MTV 30 on VH-1 Classic.

Also Viacom should rebrand VH-1 Classic to MTV Classic, because MTV is older then VH-1

I thought that, but then I thought about brand dilution. MTV is the 12-25 brand, VH1 is the 26-50 brand. They'll never want to put "Classic" next to "MTV", because MTV is never "classic", it's "now".

MTV's 20th anniversary was the last time they acknowledged their age and heritage on the air. From now on, there'll be no more birthday parties (though I was amused to find that their blog page finally copped to it at about noon yesterday. Here's their somewhat sheepish admission.)

 

[flashback]

^the comments are more interesting then the blog.

 

[firepoint525]

This thread reminds me that a radio station that I once worked for, turned 50 years old in 1998, back when I was working there. There was little or no acknowledgement of it, probably because the original folks who put it on the air were no longer around, but also because the station is now a Christian talker, after having been a top 40 station in its '50s, '60s, '70s heyday. I would also guess that my then-coworkers probably had little or no knowledge of the station's history.

What they did, however, was that they produced a station ID that said something to the effect that they had been on the air since 1947. This was not only misleading, as it implied that they had been a Christian station all that time, it was actually untrue, since they came on the air in 1948 (unless they had had a CP in 1947).

 

[vchimpanzee]

I haven't read this yet, but from the SC radio board:

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=195272.0

 

[recto101]

Remember VH1 back in the early days they were AAA, NAC and AC back then with soft R&B. and MTV was supposed to be like AOR, Top40 and CHR.

 

[Neel]

Im surprised they didn't run MTV 30 on MTV but instead on VH-1 Classic being called "MTV 30 on VH-1 Classic.

Also Viacom should rebrand VH-1 Classic to MTV Classic, because MTV is older then VH-1

Funny...in Europe, they did re-brand VH1 Classic to MTV Classic.