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Have you watched MTV recently? Probably not, because the last time you did you probably did not see the music videos you were looking for but instead got episodes of "Drunken Teen Roommates Arguing" or "That One Rapper Putting Shit Into Junker Cars." Clearly MTV has decided that, despite receiving big-budget videos for free from the labels, their network will get better ratings (and better profits) from lifestyle programming.

Today, MTV has very few videos running during the day and evening. Other than TRL - their daily top ten show with a largely teeny-bopper audience - Mothership MTV airs almost no music videos. Strange, but true.

Viacom, who owns MTV, has many other channels for you to watch - MTV2, VH1, MTVJams and now they even bought BET. Plus there are non-Viacom channels like Fuse, GAC, CMT and many more. You can catch lots of videos on these other, non-mothership networks - and they are even tailored more to your specific taste (MTV Latino, anyone?). If you know which channel to turn to (and that is often a big if) it might actually be easier to find a video you like than it was in 1989. The internet has also become the place where many people turn to watch videos - guaranteeing the viewer that they will get exactly the video they want, when they want it - assuming their browser can play the video format. (more on the internet and video watching another day)

The reason MTV became the force it did in the industry was that it allowed labels to reach viewers across the entire United States through a single outlet. This was much better for the labels than radio, where the record companies had to convince (via payola, hookers and cocaine) that individual radio stations should play the song the label wanted them to play. Reaching radio station managers in Phoenix, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Mobile was a lot of expense and effort, so the labels were overjoyed when MTV starrted to overtake radio as the place to get a new band seen and heard.

In 1995 if a label got their new artist onto MTV - they reached essentially every record buying teenager in America. Radio was often forced to follow MTV and play the songs that became hits through videos or risk alienating their audiences. Now, that the video market is divided up, the label has to work hard to get the video on a variety of networks (though Viacom is still a major player). Getting your hip-hop video on BET, may be good, but you are still only reaching a fraction of the audience that same video would have a decade ago.

This has led to the music video world being thrown into an uproar. Many production companies have gone under as budgets plummet and profit margins become razor thin. This is definitely a topic I will write about more, and you can trust that I will blame it all on MTV not playing music videos.

Labels: music video