I am 25 (ok, 26 in a couple weeks) â and finally, I feel old.
I just found out that MTV is likely canceling Total Request Live. As Lauren Gitlin points out in her Rolling Stone article, TRL is almost the last bastion of music programming on MTV. I, like many others, have long been wondering what happened to my MTV. Where did the music go? I remember when MTV used to be good, when I used to come home from school and turn it on for hours. I grew up with MTV. And when reality TV was born with The Real World, I remember watching religiously; it was new, unique. Puck and Pedro they were the original reality TV stars, way before Nick, Jessica and Paris.
So TRL viewership is down. What happened? Tom Anderson, one of the co-founders of MySpace, says, “I think we have replaced MTV. MySpace is more convenient. You can search for things, while MTV is just delivering things to you⦠That's why TV viewership is dropping among the MySpace generation.”
I think Mr. Anderson is absolutely right, but needs to widen his scope just a bit. I'm not sure that it's only MySpace that has replaced MTV, but social media, and even more broadly, technology as a whole has caused its downfall.
Videos: Not Just for TV
Video ipod. Need I say more?
What? You don't have one? Ok, neither do I. But my point â music videos aren't made to be shown only on MTV. They can be downloaded through iTunes and other similar applications. Many artists show music videos on their websites. Then, there is the monster known as YouTube. (more…)
