The ‘M’ From MTV Is Missing

That was entertaining and so true.
 
MTV has certainly lost there way since the 90's.....I used to enjoy watching Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, Martha Quinn, and of course all the music videos. Now, just a waste of a channel. 

I read somewhere that in the 80s, the record labels were heavily subsidizing MTV.  A change to the FCC regulations stopped it.  Without the subsidy, MTV couldn't stay in business just providing music videos.

There is some extra credit there too

Another honorable mention
 

http://www.askmen.com/entertainment/austin/music-videos-are-dead.html
 
That basically sums up the issue. Music videos were expensive to make, and television time is really valuable. So if the cost of making and airing the video cannot be recouped from sales of CD's there is no incentive to do so. The other issue is sequential no-choice programming. How many of you sit down turn on a local radio station sit back and do nothing else except listen to whatever music they throw at you. I listen to the radio in the car sometimes if I forgot to bring my usb song collection to plug in and there is no NPR news available, but even if I am just looking to see what is new and hot in pop music, I can find it on Spotify. How many promotional type videos (the stuff MTV used to string one after the other) are now available on the internet for you to pick and choose without having to sit through ones you dislike in between?
 
MTV is not the only cable station to have lost its way in the the fading promise of cable TV. My first cable bundle which, by the way, featured no advertisements because my subscription fee was supposed to cover the cost, included:
Arts and Entertainment, which was to be the venue for live and recorded concerts by symphony orchestras, ballets and modern dance, and visual arts criticism and commentary.
The  History Channel, that was going to be devoted to airing documentary work about history
Discovery, which was going to explore the exciting world of science
 
Look at the lineup on those channels now (which feature a very large number of commercials interrupting the content) and you will find mostly true crime and reality shows, and reruns of old broadcast shows. There is so much content needed to fill hundreds of channels 27/7 that production budgets have all but dried up, the production talent pool has been stretched thin, and only the cheapest content is affordable for most cable-casters. 
 
 

MTV has been a joke for years.

kennywtelejazz
I figure some of you guys need a good laugh
Gulp,
I'm the guy at 1 : 46 paying The Rake BTW, This is my first and only MTV video appearance  ...
 

 
Kenny
 

Was that a quadruple 12-Tine Rake Kenny?

Noice! 
 
I think that would look great on the album liner:  Kenny: Electric and Acoustic Guitars, 12-String, Rake...  
 
 

eph221

BobF
OK, I guess nobody else is going to do it ...
 

God I hated this song and video.

Not me I loved hearing it every so often over the years  ..
I used to work at Mannys Music when Jack Sonni was still working at Rudy's Guitar shop ...
We were on OK/ good terms as 48th street guitar store workers ..everybody on that block was ..
Seeing Jack go from selling guitars , picks and strings at Rudy's Guitar shop to playing Guitar in Dire Straits was very inspirational to me and many of the other guitar players that had to hold down a day gig working in a music store
 
all the best,
 
Kenny

craigb
Noice! 
 
I think that would look great on the album liner:  Kenny: Electric and Acoustic Guitars, 12-String, Rake...  
 
 

Hey Craig ,
A small screen shot of that park bench scene  may make a nice little avatar ...
Yes , that sure was a nice thing to have happened to me back then
 
Kenny
 
 

Hi,
 
I thought the M has been missing for almost 25 years!
 
It was a great idea, but sadly, the reality was that it became a nudity thing with models and such, and nowadays it is not cool to do that ... and no one wants to do videos about rats and dumpsters! Besides the fact that it will never get shown!
 
All in all, I think that a lot of videos, and this goes back to the first ones, were not very good, and in essence they were not really about the music itself, but some ego-side of a lot of the music and bands involved, and in the end, those attitudes will fall off the end of the earth like anything else.
 
I, originally, thought that it would have been a great place for live shows, but the music industry got paranoid, instead of taking an idea from the Grateful Dead and Tangerine Dream and others, and it was to also package the show and sell it ... and that kinda takes away the bootleg and the rip's for the Tube and such, for the most part.
 
In the end, MTV fell in the hands of the typical idiot that runs the American Cable Networks and channels and as such it was doomed to fall apart without interest ... and I sincerely doubt that the "costs" for many of these videos was the issue that helped kill it ... the majority of the videos that MTV showed were utter crap and badly defined and designed videos done on shoestrings and making sure the almost naked model took your attention so you would not see the cheap backgrounds. It doesn't take talent or a lot of money to do that kind of stuff, specially today, when video is it, and film is no longer in anyone's thoughts. At least, in 1975, film was still the way to go, and that cost was not exactly ... open to everyone.
 
In the end, there has to come up a new venture that is not afraid to show new folks and new works, and tell those old networks to die ... they are all crinkly and with arthritis anyway!
 
 

craigb
Oh crap!  I think I agree with Pedro!  LOL! 

You made it past Hi ?
 
 
Wow.