Why MTV Is Becoming Irrelevant

Once essential, MTV no longer calls the cultural tune. At least in the western world, that is. Now, most media observers are asking, is MTV headed for the "What Ever Happened To?" list, alongside the kids from "Diff'rent Strokes" and “Kids Incorporated”? Once the Goliath of pop music and youth marketing, the MTV has become an outlet for booty-driven reality TV.

In 2007, some 26 years after MTV defined a generation , all MTV has to say for itself is "My Super Sweet 16."

The mighty MTV has stumbled, and it's twisting around like empty bubbles going down the drain. There was a time in the 1980s and '90s when the channel had the ballast to send an act to the top of the Billboard charts, but "Idols" is the new boss. There was a time when the word "clip" meant an MTV video with artistic and commercial punch, but now the word refers to the virals that ricochet through YouTube. And there was a time when a band had no future without MTV exposure, but now a MySpace page or a position on iTunes is more essential. When it comes to the buzz biz, MTV is out of the loop.

Even MTV's annual MTV Video Music Awards, once the jewel in the network's crown, have lost their sheen. In 2002, the event drew some 12 million viewers; last September, the audience hit a low of 5.77 million. And MTV's remnant music show "TRL" has tumbled from a peak daily viewership of 782,000 in 1999 to an average of 375,000. The "TRL" situation is dire enough that MTV is about to revamp it and rename it "YouRL," in a belated nod to the digital age.

From the start, of course, the relevance of MTV exceeded its ratings. MTV has been most powerful as a harbinger of attitude and innovation, making "next" into a present tense phenomenon. But the audience decline of the VMAs and "TRL" is a symptom of a more generalized impotence. Pop and its spectacles are playing at a computer near you, as well as on most of the countless music-awards shows that air on TV year - round. MTV seems to have grown too passive, or too smug, to even reckon with those obvious obstacles.

The knife-twist in the back of MTV is that the network helped to build what is overshadowing it. The digital folk-art of viral video, where imagery from diverse sources is mashed up, owes plenty to the post-modern originality and humour of MTV video. The graphic environments of entertainment websites, too, recall music videos and those flashy early MTV station-identification interstitials. And, most importantly, the youth mindset that MTV's fast-editing wit pioneered -- impatient, eager to "go to," hungry to multitask -- has aided and abetted the nimble way young people use their computers for music- and TV-related content.

The fact that Viacom has a billion-dollar lawsuit pending against Google for using Viacom properties on YouTube, and the fact that it let News Corp. buy MySpace in 2005, only reinforce MTV's lagging reputation. Shouldn't MTV be out in front, rather than the Jan to YouTube's Marcia? MTV has licensed its content to BitTorrent, and its content will air on Viacom's highly anticipated Joost site, due later this year; it has created an iTunes-like download service called Urge; and it recently gave its own website a clarifying makeover. But it has nonetheless missed the big boat that it helped to set sail. And MTV is still figuring out how to pursue the social networking revolution of MySpace and Facebook, despite the fact that it seemed to own the MySpace/Facebook generation audience beforehand.

But on a deeper and more critical level, the real problem dogging MTV isn't the way it provides content. The real problem is the content. Even if MTV came up to speed, even if it found a way to matter in today's user-generated culture, there still isn't much there. The MTV line up is too much of nothing right now, especially when compared to other members of the Viacom cable family. Comedy Central, for instance, has stayed vital with "South Park," "The Daily Show," and "The Colbert Report," and VH1 has kept its name alive with tiresome, self-parodic, but remarkably highly rated "celebreality" programming.

MTV just doesn't have the two or three series it needs to distinguish its brand and use as tent poles. The reality shows, including "Laguna Beach," "Living Lahaina," "The Hills," and "Scarred," lose their novelty quickly, as they redundantly rely on buff bodies, rigged romance, and post-"Jackass" stunts. They all blur together ; they share the same editing-with-soundtrack style that originated on "The Real World" in 1992 and that was long ago appropriated by other networks for their own reality shows. The petty MTV reality series reveal a channel in a creative rut, still hoping to expand on the early '00s hits "The Osbournes," "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," and "Jackass."

Where is the new talent, where are the Mike Judges and Spike Jonzes, or even the new big shots like Johnny Knoxville? Why isn't MTV snagging young Stephen Colberts? Could MTV upend and reinvent itself by subverting "You" culture and reality TV, in the way "Beavis and Butt- Head" undermined music videos? Or maybe MTV has buried itself already, and producers would rather take their projects elsewhere than watch them get sucked into MTV reality quicksand.

Naturally, MTV has its share of conscience-relieving material , some of which is well done. Ultimately, a channel like MTV defines itself with its series programming, but MTV nonetheless deserves a nod for trying to pitch public affairs to younger viewers. Its news and documentary coverage related to soldiers and the war in Iraq, and its consistent push to make its viewers more environmentally aware, have been admirable. But without a new creative direction, MTV will be delivering its good works to ever fewer eyes.

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These is an excerpt taken from an article written by Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe