I Don't Want My MTV!

Let’s separate some facts from the fiction:

On New Year’s Eve, 2025, MTV died.

Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit.

MTV shut down some of its channels in the United Kingdom and Australia: MTV Music; MTV ‘80s; MTV ‘90s; MTV Live; and Club MTV. If you have cable suppliers like Tubi and Pluto, you will still be able to watch the channel here and around the world. It isn’t going anywhere…

Is it?

I have to say that I am impressed with the amount of handwringing and mourning that took place over the holidays. I spent the time at home with the family, ignoring most television apart from the World Juniors Championship Hockey series and the occasional classic movie (hopefully unrelated to the season). I did not watch any music channels out there…because there were none. My family had decided – meaning my mom, of course – to cut a lot of subscriptions to different channels, including most related to music (excluding one called Stingray which gave my ears a feast of holiday classics I could only drown out or escape from with the occasional run in the park or earbuds tuned to the latest podcast). I did not watch any videos, and music only played a role on that widescreen when the countdown took place. I was not tuned into to anyone’s playlist.

And how do I feel about that?

Well, as a Canadian kid of the 1980s, I have very mixed feelings about MTV. It was not a staple of my childhood, or the childhoods of most of my friends. It was a cable channel at a time when we simply did not bother with cable in our household (only one friend had cable television, and that was strictly for movies I was told I was too young to watch). Canada had City-TV, a network out of Toronto that was very much a part of the community it broadcast in. It brought the country Speakers’ Corner, a place where you could drop some change and record yourself commenting on any issue of the day (I never dared to show my face there, despite passing the building on long summers when I would travel to the city). That would be broadcast as its own separate half-hour program. And that reminds me that since it had no script or plot, it was one of the first programs in what would be considered the reality-TV format.

Interesting…

I never saw it coming.

Seriously, I was watching multiple programs on the channel that I thought were much more interesting and had the potential for long-lasting influence on the culture. There was The New Music, a program that began in the late 1970s and was the greatest music program I ever saw (the Clash, the Police, the Ramones, punk, new wave and the growing independent music scene was covered in detail with live footage and interviews). There was also CityLimits, another fantastic program that you had to stay up very late to watch on weekends. And I did, quite happily, seeing the best years of Psychic TV, the Residents, and any and all videos that came down the pipe (nothing seemed to be censored; nothing like it was on any other channel). There were also other video programs: Good Rockin’ Tonight; Toronto Rocks!; Friday Night Videos, etc. There really was no need for MTV, especially when City-TV finally got the message and created MuchMusic in the mid-1980s (no cable package necessary). I had my music. I had my fun.

So, what happened?

Let’s absorb an interesting fact that I researched online and a key question:

Number of Reality TV shows on MTV: 185 (including The Real World, Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, Catfish, etc.)

A posed online question: Does MTV have anything to do with music anymore?

A response: MTV doesn’t play music anymore.

It is clear to me now just how important television was in my discovery of new music. Most of my friends and family had very mainstream musical tastes. I would never have heard the Pixies, NWA or any of the more esoteric sounds of those years if I had simply gone to house parties or picnics with their collections of records and tapes (CDs were a little ways off). I would often make lists of the music that was hitting my ears and eyes, head down to the local record stores, get disappointed when most of it was not in stock, but would then discover that there were other things out there related to what I had seen and heard…and it was a real education.

And now, that is all over.

Yes, MTV is still on the air, despite “pressure from broader economic headwinds” (a direct quote from the Paramount/Showtime/MTV President Chris McCarthy, the man directly involved with the $8 billion merger that led to the cuts). Yes, there are programs with the MTV tag despite the fact that MTV Music ended its run with the original video that began the network’s run on August 1st, 1981: “Video Killed the Radio Star” by Buggles. It is still on the air despite the fact that I cannot find anyone who watches any of the programs listed earlier, both musical and reality-TV based.

I just wonder why we allowed this change to take place.

And I have to end this with a letter.

Okay, not a full letter. This came from a collection of music criticism and other writing by the late Lester Bangs (1948 – 1982). Since his death, I have read one biography, two collections of his writing for Rolling Stone, Creem and other newspapers and magazines (remember them?), and even one record he managed to release (here is a link for ya, if you dare). But it was the first collection that contained a very interesting prologue and epilogue.

There is no real way that someone can communicate from the great beyond (crystal balls and Ouija boards, be damned), but I found it funny that there were letters addressed to fellow critic Dave Marsh…in January of 1986! Someone was obviously having fun at a dead man’s expense, and I initially thought it was all in bad taste. But I could not ignore the following passages:

“Met God when I first got here. I asked him why. You know, 33 and all. All he said was ‘M.T.V.’ He didn’t want me to experience it, whatever the fuck it is.”

Lester died in April of 1982, broke and possibly without cable television access. This makes some sort of warped sense.

And in February of the same year (from the desk of Wayne Newton!):

“PS – What is this fucking ‘M.T.V.’ Thought for sure it was some new drug, but Rick [Nelson] says no it’s not. Then he thinks for a second and says, ‘You know, Lester, maybe it is at that.’ Said if it had been around in ’69, Stones’d have to make a ‘video’ of ‘Gimme Shelter.’ I say huh?”

And I cannot add anything else to that.

Reality has killed the video star.

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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