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I no longer want my MTV

Dumbed-down content and internet competition have killed the video star, writes Damian Corless

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By Damien Corless
Friday Jun 20 2008

When MTV launched in the USA in August 1981, its producers were fully aware that they were making history.

To leave viewers in no doubt that this was a momentous event, the new station blasted off with footage of the first Moon landing, as a sonorous voice boomed: "Ladies and gentlemen -- rock and roll!" The new era in broadcasting opened with Video Killed The Radio Star by Buggles.

In fact, video didn't kill the radio star. Quite the contrary happened. The advent of MTV generated new audiences, created new stars, and sent record sales soaring for a time. The station's format of back-to-back pop songs was so simple and effective that RTE did a straight copy of it. Starting in 1984, MT-USA ran for three hours each Sunday, with 'Fab' Vinny Hanley supplying breathless links filmed on the sidewalks of New York.

Nine years ago when the MTV Europe Awards came to Dublin's Point, the capital partied for a week and there was a genuine pride that Celtic Tiger Ireland had taken its place amongst the hip nations of the Earth. But nine years is a long time in pop music, as we've seen from the sad and steep decline of the biggest star attraction at The Point that night, Britney Spears. But while it's an occupational hazard that pop stars sometimes go mad, MTV's own sorry decline has been perhaps more surprising.

The channel that was once synonymous with cutting-edge cleverness has become a byword for dumbed-down drivel. Last week its tattered reputation sank to a new low when Britain's broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, slapped a £255,000 (€324,000) fine on MTV Networks Europe for airing lewd language in the guise of entertainment.

By the early 1990s the station was beginning to diversify away from its core business of airing non-stop videos, producing cartoons like Beavis And Butthead and influential shows like The Real World and Road Rules.

The Real World, a "soapumentary" which focused on the lives on seven strangers sharing a house together, was the forerunner to Big Brother and the entire reality genre.

But if The Real World started a race to the bottom, that race really gathered momentum when MTV started broadcasting The Tom Green Show in 1999. Green's puerile idea of humour involved ever more outrageous stunts which trampled good taste into the ground. One involved simulating romantic involvement with a dead moose, while another involved conducting vox-pops on the street using a microphone smeared with dog droppings. On another occasion he went into a pharmacy and asked for condoms, describing in graphic detail to the staff what he intended to do with them.

The next show developed by MTV to insult the intelligence was Jackass, which involved its presenters risking life and limb to perform dangerous stunts. From the outset, Jackass carried warnings and disclaimers telling viewers: "Don't try this at home." Inevitably, of course, some did. US Senator Joseph Lieberman launched a campaign to have Jackass taken off the air after a 13-year-old boy suffered serious burns imitating a risky stunt. In response, MTV agreed a 10pm watershed for the show.

But MTV's current troubles go beyond the fact that it has become irredeemably stupid. In Europe and the US it has been shedding viewers at an alarming rate -- and when viewers vanish, advertisers follow. In Europe, its alternative rock channel MTV2, and its R'n'B channel MTV Base, are suffering particularly badly, with the high-spending 16-24-year-old males deserting in large numbers.

In the USA, MTV's decline recently attracted the notice of the Wall Street Journal, which ran a story entitled Does MTV Still Rock? The Journal observed: "MTV grew into a cultural juggernaut, not just because it took risks on innovative content, but because its own culture was innovative, even subversive. Executives came to work late because they had been out partying with rock stars until the early hours -- and that was fine because it fostered an atmosphere of creativity."

But, the writer suggested, a culture that was once fluid and creative has become old, complacent and stuck in its ways. The Journal concluded: "As the company grew older and larger, some former executives say it has become allergic to criticism. Management's decentralised approach has, at times, allowed problems to fester. The cadre of executives who founded the network have been reluctant to open their ranks to outsiders, institutionalised thought has crept in and management fiefdoms and silos have been created."

There can be no doubt that many of those deserting MTV are now sourcing their music from websites like MySpace and YouTube.

The lure of the internet is also a problem for MTVs biggest competitor, Box TV, whose MD Gidon Katz recently reflected: "MTV used to be the place where you would go to see new music videos. Now, nine of the top 20 hits on YouTube are music videos. What's more, 70pc of Bebo streams are music."

He pointed out: "Bebo can put up what they want. This means they don't have the same rights cost. They also don't have a regulator trying to constrain their activities, and as a result they can be more radical and innovative.

"And they can respond to user demand. A user can type in the video they want to see and it will just pop up on screen."

There are other reasons why MTV's decline may be irreversible. In its golden years it was the only show in town, not just for pop fans, but for acts as well. These days those acts might bypass MTV in favour of signing a deal to broadcast their material on mobile phones.

For all its woes, it's hard to feel sympathy for MTV.

For giving us reality TV, Jackass, Punk'd and a slew of other drivel, it's karmic payback time.

- Damien Corless