by Michael Fox

Created on: July 07, 2009

It used to be that the talk about MTV not playing music videos or music-related programs was a joke. Today it's become less of a joke and more of a given. People these days have begun to surrender the idea of MTV ever going back to playing actual music videos or music programs.

It is safe to say that the influence that MTV had on music videos in the 1980s and the early part of the 1990s was significant. MTV helped to make television a new way for people to experience music and to learn about new bands.

The station did begin adding non-music programs in the 1990s. Many of these shows, including the Real World, Beavis and Butthead and Singled Out have been very influential to their respective genres. This could be seen as the beginning of the end for MTV though in that thanks to the successes of these programs it got to where the station would begin to air more non-music programs. In fact, with MTV canning its TRL program not too long ago it can be seen that the network is clearly getting away from music altogether.

When MTV was formed it was supposed to be a station that dealt with music. It was successful in that it offered all sorts of notable music programs including shows like Headbanger's Ball and Yo! MTV Raps and dealt with a variety of genres. To see that the network has put music on the backburner is unfortunate.

Today MTV has fallen to where watching anything dealing with music is a challenge. Here's a look at some of the programs that one would find on a typical MTV schedule:

Next, Is She Really Going Out With Him, Parental Control - assorted dating shows. When you've seen one dating show you've seen them all.

Silent Library - based on a Japanese game show. It seems that whenever people try to copy Japanese programs they always fail miserably. Then again many Japanese shows are too bizarre to even try to copy.

Nitro Circus - shouldn't extreme sports shows air on stations like ESPN, Versus or Fuel?

Paris Hilton's My New BFF - need I say more?

MTV2 was formed as a place that was especially for music videos but today that station airs very little music videos. At least it does play some videos.

It seems that today VH1 Classic and Fuse are the only places where people can actually watch videos. Granted, both stations are airing some non-music programs but at least they play more modern and classic videos than MTV does today. This just goes to show how unfortunate it is that the M in MTV has practically become irrelevant to that station.

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