[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Mar 15 2004, 10:05 AM\']That's a pretty cliche position that's been advanced by people who still wish MTV was all music, all the time. However, it is an extreme minority. The overwhelming evidence (supported by ratings, publicity, ad buys, demographics, etc) is that MTV was very wise to have expanded its "brand" to encompass youth culture and not limit itself to music.
We start finding out today whether GSN's analogy is valid. It will be interesting to see if we can weed out the comments that clearly would be resistant to ANY move away from traditional shows and instead focus on the merits (or lack thereof) of the programs and the programming philosophy itself.[/quote]
Cliche? Sure. Although, I feel as though I should qualify my argument a little, Matt, as I believe Casey read a little too much into what I said. My argument wasn't all "WHAA WHAA MTV WONT PLAEY TEH VIDOES," it was more along the lines of being all "WHAA WHAA MTV IS TEH LAZEY."
Reason for that is that I'm of the opinion that the late 80s/early 90s was the best time for MTV: They got their "sea legs" in the 80s, after --for lack of a better term-- an interesting start ("Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes" readily springs to mind).
Having finally gotten some decent exposure, they started branching out. Remote Control, Liquid Television, the John Stewart show... Right up untill The Real World. Don't get me wrong, the first season or two was pretty decent, but somewhere along the line, they must've figured that if one showing every once in a while was okay then 1500 would surely put the ratings through the roof! And why stop there? Sure enough, that lead to Road Rules, and the incessant repeats; Tough Enough, and their incessant repeats...
So, rather than actually try and keep the creativity flowing, MTV, much like television in general nowadays, stagnated. Let's take "Newlyweds," for example: It's the Real World, only instead of media hogs mugging for the camera with the mundane activities of their daily lives, we get media hogs mugging for the camera with the mundane activities of their daily lives with a woman who's dumber than a sack of hammers.
The problem with MTV, and TV in general, is one of cultural incest: "Let some other sucker take the chance, 'cause we can always copy their gimmick if they strike gold." (see: WWtbaM? vs. Greed; Everybody Loves Raymond vs. My Wife and Kids vs. The Tracy Morgan Show vs. Bernie Mac; The Bachelor vs. Average Joe vs. Cupid vs. Joe Millionaire; Poker vs. Blackjack... ).
But to steer this thread back on topic: I'm very interested in how Extreme Dodgeball will turn out. Physical/slapstick comedy has never failed to get a laugh out of me. I'm not holding my breath for the Vegas chapel hidden camera thing,
though. Kenny vs. Spenny has potential. In my opinion, Fake-a-Date will be worth watching, much like imagining a train wreck at a clown college.
