Remember back in August of 1981 when that new station featuring music videos premiered? Of course you don’t, most of you weren’t even a gleam in your daddy’s eye back then, but for those of us that do remember the birth of Music Television; we miss those days…a lot.

When MTV launched, there were 5 “VJ’s” on staff: Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J. J. Jackson, and Martha Quinn. They would record their shows during a regular work week and then the engineers would create what appeared to be a live program of one of the VJ’s introducing videos, doing interviews, and sharing music news.

The format was similar to most FM stations in the nation: AOR, or album oriented rock. Little by little, mainstream artists began making videos and they were added to the rotation on MTV. Then videos would actually make their world premiere on MTV and become hits on the radio and the record charts. We may have heard very little from such acts as Duran Duran, Kate Bush, or Culture Club had it not been for their exposure on MTV.

And what has MTV become? A mixture of programming that caters to a youth culture that can’t seem to keep their minds on anything for more than 30 minutes. Such wonderful programming as “The Jersey Shore,” “A Shot at Love with Tila Tiquila,” and the many incarnations of “The Real World” (you realize most of the participants were actors, right?) replaced classic programing such as “Beavis & Butthead,”, “Yo, MTV Raps,” and “Headbangers’ Ball,” which were all music related shows.

I don’t understand how a network who’s name includes the word “music” can offer so little programming that actually involves music. We used to listen to MTV every waking hour. It was like having the radio on, except that when that video of Pat Benetar in the black jumpsuit or ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” came on, you could stop to watch it. Now if you want music on MTV, you need to wake your ass up early in the morning, or just pull an all-nighter, to catch their only music program, “Music Feed,” from 4 to 8 a.m. So music television now equates to 4 or so hours of actual music a day? Pathetic!

Former rival and now sister station of MTV, VH1, carries about the same amount of music with 3 hours of “VH1 + Music” each morning beginning at 6 a.m. Is that the only time we are supposed to listen to music now or something? Prime time on both stations is filled with questionable programming that in no way should rival any major network…except that it does. What MTV does especially well is cater to the 15-25 year old viewer with “reality” shows about growing up during that age period or comedy shows that pander to that age group. Their program “Teenage Mom” is probably no worse, and may actually be better than the stupidity of some other network offering “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant” or some such garbage.

In the end, however, music television isn’t music television anymore. YouTube has taken over that role and until such time that executives at MTV Networks pull their heads out and start offering real music shows more than 4 hours a day, I’ll stick with YouTube. I want my YouTube doesn’t quite have the same ring to it though.