Music television channels MTV are going downhill. We mostly watch clips on our mobiles or laptops nowadays.
Legendary music stations that hide under the MTV brand will stop broadcasting from January next year. This is happening at a time when the parent company Paramount is trying to reduce its operating costs by up to $500 million, or in conversion, 10 billion crowns.
It is expected that the mammoth giant Paramount will stop broadcasting MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live at the turn of the year. It will, for example, scrap its music channels in Australia, France, and Brazil. In our country, and also in Slovakia, only MTV Europe, offering localized content with Czech subtitles, should remain on the market according to the Mediaguru.cz portal. However, it primarily focuses only on selected reality show programs. Also, in neighboring Germany and Austria, MTV Deutschland station should continue. But not anymore with music content. It should also be preserved as a non-paid version, known in standard resolution to Czech viewers from the Astra 19.2-degree satellite. What will likely remain in operation, however, are probably also digital platforms, possibly including music ones, and the brand’s special events, such as the annual MTV European Music Awards.
Internet steamrolls music television
Many fans have been discussing the anticipated cancellation of music television content on social networks for several weeks now. They are pointing out the fact that the described step could weaken the brand's identity and lead to its complete disappearance.
The internet, which is literally steamrolling other media types, is to blame for everything. Thanks to being online, we can instantly play our favorite clip. The past, when we had to wait for the clip to be aired on television, is gone. The offering of the music industry is much richer today than it was in the 80s of the last century. So, on the internet, you can simply choose which performer you want to listen to at the moment.
Hundreds of millions of viewers
The MTV station was first launched in the United States in 1981. It quickly became an icon of pop culture. It was associated with such historic milestones as the premiere of Michael Jackson's Thriller video, 16-hour broadcasting of the Live Aid concert series in 1985, or the advent of the grunge music style, which was mainly attributed to Nirvana with their song Smells Like Teen Spirit. In 1987, its European version was launched, and more than ten years later, a special British channel followed.
European branch of MTV had a key influence in spreading Western culture in the countries of the former Soviet bloc, especially in the 90s. Former host Simone Angel, who then worked for MTV Europe and MTV UK, told the BBC that the channel was a place where everything was interconnected and where culture gained a global dimension. She recalled that Mikhail Gorbachev allegedly told MTV management that the channel influenced young people in communist countries more than rockets did, as it for the first time showed what Western life was like behind the Iron Curtain. MTV Europe channel then had 100 to 150 million viewers.
The MTV brand has become an inspiration for many other music channels, such as our Óčko, Retro Music or Rebel. Currently, we can tune into several other stations that play music on television.
Serials, movies and reality shows
MTV gradually expanded to original programming with series. As the importance of the internet and channels like Youtube and TikTok grew, the television began to completely abandon music videos. The exception was only the annual MTV European Music Awards ceremony.
The current program lineup of the station at this moment mainly includes series such as Sherlock Holmes: How simple, CSI: Las Vegas and Red Dwarf, complemented by children's animated shows SpongeBob SquarePants and Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness. The film offer consists of titles from the Paramount library including G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of Lost Ark, or comedies Hustlers and Paddington 2. A stable part of the broadcast is also the local stand-up format Comedy Club.
Music remains primarily the domain of online platforms YouTube, Spotify and YouTube Music. For free use of content in our country, YouTube is clearly unrivaled, used by 7 out of 10 respondents for listening to music, as found by the Ressolution Group and Nielsen survey. People mainly use their phones, computers, and car players to listen to music, according to the same source. Television now mainly serves for watching movies, series, documentaries, sports shows and to some extent, news. The golden age of music on television seems to be irretrievably gone.
Sources: Mediaguru, BBC, Seznam News
