Sorry, what was that about video killing the radio star? It now seems reality TV has finally killed the music video (on TV, at least).
MTV has finally admitted what most people have known since at least early last decade: it is no longer "music television."
The network, which launched in 1981 specifically to air music videos, launched a new logo on Monday (Feb. 8), which no longer features the "music television" tagline that's been a part of their original logo for almost 30 years.
Tina Exarhos, vice president of marketing and something called "multiplatform creative projects" (whatever that is) finally admitted to the New York Daily News that the network is not just about music anymore and has been turning away from their old format for a while now.
"If you watch the channel, you've seen that it's definitely going in a new direction," she said.
Basically, that now means the new MTV logo includes headshots of stars of Jersey Shore, The Buried Life and My Life As Liz — none of which have much to do with music, other than tunes played in the background.
Of course, they're keeping the Video Music Awards, but most music programming aside from reality shows has been canned by now, which we think basically means the nail has finally been metaphorically hammered into the music video's coffin, and it's made one hell of a resounding tonk. The music video is now relegated to the internet and specialty digital cable.
That said, MTV2, MTV Hits and MTV Tr3s still play music videos. That's if you can get them, of course. Their availability has decreased over the last few years.
We think MuchMusic has been way ahead of MTV on this whole "dropping the music" thing. The Canadian network long ago removed the word "music" from their logo, and now simply use "Much" in their graphics, though the channel is still known as MuchMusic.
The number of music video-related programs has drastically declined on MuchMusic over the last few years as well, particularly since 2007 when CTVglobemedia (which also happens to own MTV Canada) gained ownership of CHUM. MuchMusic still maintains specialty music video channels, such as MuchLOUD, MuchVibe and MuchMore, which all play more music videos than MuchMusic actually does. But again, they're only available through specialty cable packages.
Music videos also still air on AUX TV. It's also a specialty cable channel and you can watch videos through its website.
We think it would only be appropriate at this point to leave you with The Buggles:
