eMpTV Is Dead. As In Really, Really Dead

[crunchee]

What's left of the corpse is nothing more than Lowest Common Denominator 'reality' crap, and has been for a long time.  Maybe they shoulda changed the name of the networks to 'LCDtv'. 

MTV channels going offline like they began, with The Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star'

MTV is shutting down its music channels after 44 years

 

Edited December 31, 2025 by crunchee

[Willie G. Moseley]

...and there is no such thing as "reality television." There is no way a person behaves normally in his/her lifestyle if he/she knows a camera is recording him/her.

Moreover, in the real real world, persons of numerous races, ethnicities, lifestyles and other demographics don't participate in tokenism-fueled residential experiences. 

The very moniker of "reality television" is phony. I've never watched a reality TV show, and never will.

Edited December 31, 2025 by Willie G. Moseley

[crunchee]

Seems like a good time as any to post a video...I couldn't choose just one as these two seemed to fit the occasion.  Post 'Video Killed The Radio Star' if you want, but I'm not:

 

 

[Tortious]

🤘

[Disturber]

It's a really strong brand name. I am surprised how they succeed in fxcking it up over the last 25 years or so. 

[Steve Haynie]

MTv videos were never as interesting to me as live concert videos.  Not having cable meant not keeping up with the latest videos.  The VJ's were never celebrities to me.  

This news is not good-- a business is disappearing.  I just cannot care since they got rid of most of the music even though I did not watch it.

Edited December 31, 2025 by Steve Haynie

[DaveL]

That’s so wierd… I remember Appetite For Destruction was stalling and for some reason Mtv refused to play Welcome to the jungle… as a favor to David Geffen (after legendary a & r guy Tom Zutaut kept pestering him),  they played it at 2am… and the switchboard blew up.  The rest was history. Blows the mind the power they yielded.    
 

edit: this hamfisted cover of knockin on heaven’s door from the MTv Ritz concert probably had Dylan rolling over in his grave, quite a feat since he’s not dead yet!!!!  
 

    but it I loved how it over night made every other 80’s glam band ditch the polka dot and neon and start dressing as Les Paul wielding street toughs.  
 

  It’s also superior to the overdone studio version.  
 

 

 

Edited January 2 by DaveL

[diablo175]

38 minutes ago, Steve Haynie said:

MTv videos were never as interesting to me as live concert videos.  Not having cable meant not keeping up with the latest videos.  The VJ's were never celebrities to me.  

This news is not good-- a business is disappearing.  I just cannot care since they got rid of most of the music even though I did not watch it.

I had parents who did not get cable until AFTER I left for college. I missed a sizeable chunk of the early-mid 80's heyday of MTV, along with a lot of the buzz and chatter fodder in high school.

I agree that the live footage was always bit more exciting but there was no shortage of inspiration and awe created by the polished MTV vids. They often sold me on  purchasing an album or single. 

On a few rare occasions, they convinced me to avoid the band/album as well.  

[specialk]

Jeez, so you're saying they didn't die off years ago, when they quit playing music?

Haven't been on my radar in ages… 

[Dave Scepter]

BITD, I only watched it for Headbangers Ball 🤘😝🤘

[stobro]

I liked the Replacements attitude toward music videos.

 

[crunchee]

4 hours ago, Dave Scepter said:

BITD, I only watched it for Headbangers Ball 🤘😝🤘

My fave MTV programs were 120 Minutes and Alternative Nation.  There is a small archive of recorded MTV programming available on YooToob.

[stedge]

Happy 2026, folks.

 

As for MTV, i thought Martha Quinn was cute.   But lost its souls when TRW and crap like that were on there.

[DaveH]

I thought MTV was the greatest thing when it first started, even tho the vids were weird as hell 95% of the time. And, I was at the right age (20?) for it. 10 years later I only turned it on to watch Headbanger's Ball. Then they destroyed it, and I can't be sad about it.

[hamerhead]

19 hours ago, crunchee said:

MTV is shutting down its music channels after 44 years

Seems longer since I cared.....

[alantig]

It should be pointed out that these are the UK MTV channels, not the US versions.  Those are still up and running, although the one article states that there's still a (good?) chance that may change.

MTV, much like TLC (The Learning Channel) and AMC (American Movie Classics), has a name that doesn't apply to what it delivers these days.  It's a brand that means nothing.  There seems to be so little music content across the various MTV and VH1 channels that there's really nothing to attract a music fan.

Perhaps the most egregious example of MTV channel ruination is MTV Live, formerly Palladium.  When it was Palladium, they showed a pretty good variety of concerts - I still have some on my DVR  Then MTV took over, changed it to MTV Live, and it was like Clear Channel swooping in on XM Radio (and Sirius) - the variety of material shrunk to almost nothing.  Although if you're a fan of the Springsteen Unplugged episode, it airs something like four or five times a week, it seems.  Tons of Storyteller, Making Of The Band.  Very little live music.  Very little variety in shows - you'll rarely, if ever, see Classic Albums, or some of the old VH1 series.  

This is why physical media is important.

[crunchee]

3 hours ago, alantig said:

It should be pointed out that these are the UK MTV channels, not the US versions.  Those are still up and running, although the one article states that there's still a (good?) chance that may change.

MTV, much like TLC (The Learning Channel) and AMC (American Movie Classics), has a name that doesn't apply to what it delivers these days.  It's a brand that means nothing.  There seems to be so little music content across the various MTV and VH1 channels that there's really nothing to attract a music fan.

Perhaps the most egregious example of MTV channel ruination is MTV Live, formerly Palladium.  When it was Palladium, they showed a pretty good variety of concerts - I still have some on my DVR  Then MTV took over, changed it to MTV Live, and it was like Clear Channel swooping in on XM Radio (and Sirius) - the variety of material shrunk to almost nothing.  Although if you're a fan of the Springsteen Unplugged episode, it airs something like four or five times a week, it seems.  Tons of Storyteller, Making Of The Band.  Very little live music.  Very little variety in shows - you'll rarely, if ever, see Classic Albums, or some of the old VH1 series.  

This is why physical media is important.

I probably shoulda called this post 'MTV As We Once Knew It Is Really, Really Dead'.  Though US MTV in the old music and video-centric form has been gone for many years, that format/focus/whatever had been hanging on in some form in other countries...apparently until now.  Regardless of the country, all those channels that are/were under the corporate MTV umbrella has now ceased all music-focused programming, which was what I was referring to...and which most of us (if not all of us) remember it as being in the beginning:

Is MTV Shutting Down? Everything to Know About the Channels Going Off the Air

Of course, regardless of whether corporate entities will still use any semblance of the old MTV trademarks in the future, IMO they will likely carry on with the Lowest Common Denominator 'reality crap' programming that they do now on those same channels, until either The Machines or cockroaches take over.

Edited January 2 by crunchee

[velorush]

On 12/31/2025 at 3:43 PM, Willie G. Moseley said:

...and there is no such thing as "reality television." There is no way a person behaves normally in his/her lifestyle if he/she knows a camera is recording him/her.

The Hawthorne Effect. Studied it in nerd school.  

I went to college the second year of MTV and it was a constant staple in the fraternity house. For me it was a chance to see people playing instruments (or typically pretending to do so). My introduction to MTV coincided with my introduction to "the rest of music," i.e., not-Lynyrd-Skynyrd-or-Bob-Seger-or-38-Special-etc. and it was mind blowing. So much different music! Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I left college around the time MTV left their original MO, so it worked out great. I still enjoy the original VJays on XM 80's. Fond memories. 

[Willie G. Moseley]

Steve Haynie has a valid point about the live concerts. I recorded quite a few onto a stereo Beta videotape, then VHS after Beta capitulated in that format war...but Beta sounded better. 

Dubbed teh audio to cassette and later, cassette to CD-R. They still sound passable. Kept most of the cassettes and recently examined what I still have and how they hold up sonically and musically. Some of 'em ended up as legit concert video releases, like The Cars Live in Houston 1984 (and I'm not sure that's the exact title).

Not everything from certain concerts was used. That said, it was fun to process the ones that fit onto a C-90 cassette from the raw videoetape. I used instrumentals to fade out the sides.

YES: Edmonton, Aklbaerta-1984 90125 tour (Later released  as 9013Live, I think)

DAVID GILMOUR: About Face tour, 1984

AMNESTY INTERNATONAL CONCERT: 1986

HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS: San Francisxo 1984

PAUL SIMON IN ZIMBABWE: 1987

GENESIS IN BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND: 1984

ASIA LIVE IN JAPAN: 1983

(RAW) LIVE AID---transferred to audio cassette but never processed: 1985

AC.DC: St. Louis 1983

VAN HALEN: New Haven 1986

VARIOUS AUSTIN CITY  LIMITS PERFOMRANCES: TIMBUK 3, ERIC JOHNSON, STANLEY JORDAN, ETC.

ERIC CLAPTON; NEW HAVEN (I think): 1984 (has my all-time favorite version of "Layla" plus a dynamite version of "Badge" that careens into "Let It Rain"

ERIC CLAPTON: BIRMINGHAM ENGLAND, 1986

HEARTBEAT '86: Benefit with Moody Blues, E.L.O., etc.

TEARS FOR FEARS: London 1984

PETE TOWNSHEND: Brixton 

HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS: Los Angeles 1092

ATLANTIC RECORDS 40TH ANNIVERSARY

MR. MISTER: The iRitz, NYC

GOLDEN EARRING: Holland 1984 (a lot better than might be expected)

FIXX: St. Petersburg, 1984 

FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS: London 1985

BILLY JOEL: Nassau Coliseum 

CSN: New Universal amphitheatre 1983

38 SPECIAL: Nassau Coliseum 1984

I've also got a dub somewhere of a concert featuring the Romantics, Heart, and Huey Lewis & the News (in that order). The Romantics' "What I Like About You" with a segue into "Little Latin Lupe Lu" is stone devastating (Mitch Ryder rules!). Back then it inspired my bar band to come with something similar, and the end result, clocking in at least 20 minutes was "Mony Mony"--bass solo, incl. snippets from the "I Love Lucy" theme,  "Danger Zone and "Tequila"--"Born to Be Wild"--"Mony Mony" reprise---drum solo---"Little Latin Lupe Lu". One of our strongest efforts, usually went over like gangbusters.

 

[The Shark]

On 12/31/2025 at 4:43 PM, Willie G. Moseley said:

I've never watched a reality TV show, and never will.

You never watched Jim on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom?

[DaveH]

6 hours ago, The Shark said:

You never watched Jim on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom?

Jim always gets screwed! 😂