Video Killed the Radio Star
Where's the music
I am old enough to remember the launch of MTV. It was August first, 1981. Okay, to there I go dating myself again.
Quick trivia question (a real Trivial Pursuit question), what was the first video on MTV? It was Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles.
When it first launched it was the coolest thing. It was the white noise as the background for every adolescent activity while awake. In the days long before iPods it was the soundtrack of our lives. Oh MTV, look at what has happened to you.
When did you forget about the “M” of MTV. It started innocently enough, maybe with Bevis and Butthead. B&B were cool and edgy so we really didn’t mind. We really didn’t mind The Real World because we could identify. How else could Puck have ever become a pop icon and relevant?
We envied the VJs and though they had the coolest job. How awesome would it have been to be Kennedy, Adam Curry or even Kurt Loder?
When I was in college they launched Remote Control, MTVs first game show. Every time I watched it I could not help but think “I could totally dominate on that show.” Ken Ober hosted and we got our first national taste of Colin Quinn. No, Ken did not sink into obscurity, he produces New Adventures of Old Christine for CBS. But the cast member we remembered most were the hostesses, especially Marisol and Kari Wuhrer…grr.
But sometime after that the wheels came off. For far too long it has been about reality, sort of, and not music. It must have been profitable otherwise they would not have done it for so long. But now it seems that the worm has turned.
It seems that the reality genre has a shelf life. It was not good enough to fill the programming day with reality show pablum but they started to repeat episodes and it has hurt the ratings…gee.MTV ratings down
I’m not a TV programming whiz by any means but I have a crazy idea, making music television about music.
