How MTV Broke its Promise

In the pop-saturated early 1980s, one slogan stood above the rest:

I Want My MTV.

Four decades after the birth of the nascent music video network and it’s stunning effect on pop culture, there is now an even more ubiquitous statement that presents itself endlessly in the form of a punchline.

I’m sure you’ve heard it.

MTV doesn’t play music anymore.

In fact, you can’t even mention MTV to somebody without getting this snarky addendum. Hard to believe, but MTV is now forty years old, and really only favored music for the first twenty.

So why are so many people still so mad about this?

Because it was a betrayal of our vows, plain and simple.

MTV swooped into our lives, made us fall in love, walked together with us on our personal musical journey and eventually broke our hearts, slowly pulling back on the relationship until we were forced to admit it had left us for Teen Mom.

It’s not that we grew up and didn’t like youthful music anymore. The music left us. It sucks to get dumped.

How did we get here? The way we always do.

Chasing the quarterly bottom line. The tail wagging the dog.