The Very First Two Hours Of MTV

**(Pinning Mario’s comment because a lot of folks seem to think this so here my reply to this idea.)**

Not sure if that’s actually true Mario….A lot of people seem to think so but YouTube actually got started in 2006 I think, and it really wasn’t a big “Thing” until around 2009 or so (Someone please correct me if I am wrong).
“Music Television” (Meaning MTV showing Music Videos non-stop) was “Dead’ by about 2001 (Someone please correct me if I am wrong).
“Music Television” is “Dead” because of “Us”.

Simply put, TV shows got better ratings than the videos…It started with the original “VJ’s getting little half hour shows…MTV noticed that these little shows drew higher ratings than the videos by themselves…After a while they brought out proper music shows like Yo MTV Raps, and 120 Minutes (which focused on alternative music videos) and Headbanger’s Ball (which played metal videos). They found these blocks of shows not only did well, but had regular viewers who tuned in at the specific times these shows were on, something MTV had not really seen before.

In the old days you just turned it on and left it on, but as people got tired of the VJ or just watching the same music videos over and over they would tune out. Now people were tuning in for specific shows. In the 1980s they developed a style show, a news show, a club show and a game show, all still relatively music related. These shows were getting higher ratings than when the regular music videos were playing, which is what led to the development of “The Real World”, the first real MTV show that was NOT music related (That is if you don’t count “Liquid Television” (Animation) in the middle of the night which gave us our first glimpses of “Beavis and Butthead” and you all know what happened to those guys lol.).

Not only did Real World get ratings, everyone was also talking about it. It even did well in the encore presentations, getting ratings higher than music videos on their own. This show in particular seemed to lead MTV away from music videos and into other types of programming. That success led to shows like Road Rules, Real World Vs. Road Rules, and The Challenge. Once MTV saw how successful non music programming could be, they started to make more and more shows, and program less and less free music video time.

We may regret it now but when MTV created one show one time, and reruns of it were getting them higher ratings than showing music videos, you knew what was going to happen to the network.
“Video” may have in fact “Killed” the “Radio Star”….But “We” “Killed” MTV.

@therealmaxspeedster I really hate how we (not me personally because I loved MTV for music videos) killed MTV as it was for The Real World and made way for what should be called RTV (R for reality) because MTV seldom shows music videos. I would rather see Ralph Bellamy and Kennedy host a block of videos than The Kardashians (not sure if it’s on MTV these days or not) or whatever reality show that’s airing on MTV these days.

@whataboutrob442 Sorry Rob but no. 😑.