MTV Hater's Page


MTV is a 24-hour, non-stop, commercial oriented channel that is devoted tp presenting music videos to the young generation around the United States. When MTV first started all that was showed were music videos, but since then the channel has become laced with nothing but none-stop commercial after commercial. By the end of 1983 MTV had made more than $20 million dollars in Ad revenue alone. The estimated figures for 1984 was that the show was making more than a million dollarws a week in ad revenue. This is all targeted to an audience of over 22 million--which can be an advertisers dream. According to E. Ann Kaplan, author of Rocking Around the Clock, the "coming up next" mechanism by MTV is what keeps viewers glued to the TV even through the commercials. Kaplan says that we are trapped by the constant hope that the next video will finally satsitfy and, lured by the suductive promise of immediate plenitude, we keep endlessly consuming the short texts, or advertising. This is the precise reason why many loyal watchers are now turning away from "Their MTV." Even the videos that are seen are advertisments also, they are not only rock videos but they are "rock promos," since they are widely seen as promotional tools for the record companies. MTV is now aware of the idea that people are tired of the talk shows and advertisments so they have proposed a new channel called "M2" which is to show music videos all the time. Although there will be some shows such as the new Jenny McCarthy show and the new Dennis Rodman show there will be much fewer shows than there are on the orinigal MTV channel. Is this new channel really necessary?


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