As MTV Turns 40, It’s Time to Embrace the Generation That Grew Up With It

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MTV turns 40 on Sunday, and it hardly looks its age. Well, that’s because it hardly looks like, well, anything anymore. At least that’s the depressing state of the linear MTV channel, which in recent years has become 95% reruns of “Ridiculousness,” along with a handful of runs of 20-year-old movies (“Joe Dirt”) and limited first-run airings of legacy shows like “Teen Mom” and “Catfish: The TV Series.”

It’s been a cliché for years to complain about what happened to the music on MTV. (For the record, the cable network programs a grand total of one hour and 10 minutes of music programming a week — the 10-minute “Fresh Out Live” on Fridays, and the one-hour “Fresh Out Playlist” on Saturday mornings.) But the music question has been moot since the mid-2000s, when videos moved to YouTube and Vevo. The larger issue is, what happened to the programming, period, on MTV? It’s become a zombie channel, and for those of us still rooting for the brand, it’s a sad sight to see.

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MTV is a brand that has always adapted to the times. And even now, that means a new MTV for the streaming generation. That’s fine. But young viewers don’t watch linear TV anymore. Hence the decision to program mostly “Ridiculousness” repeats on the channel as a bit of a nightlight. But are we really going to let MTV as a channel fade away, with a whimper like that?

Ironically, in 2021 MTV has once again morphed its brand toward the Gen X crowd (who’s watching those docs and “The Real World: Homecoming”) and millennials (“Emily in Paris”) than Gen Z, who aren’t… watching TV at all.

That’s why I’d say, ViacomCBS would have nothing to lose at this point in making MTV back into a lifestyle channel for the original MTV Generation. A generation that, yes, still subscribes to cable. And who still fondly remembers watching wall-to-wall Live Aid coverage on MTV. Jamming to acoustic Nirvana on “MTV Unplugged.” Playing along to the pop-culture trivia on “Remote Control.” Giggling to “Just Say Julie” Brown and “Beavis & Butt-head.” Watching Vanilla Ice on “The Week in Rock” trying to justify that sample he swiped from Queen and David Bowie. Getting schooled in hip-hop 101 on “Yo! MTV Raps.” And watching the most popular videos on “Dial MTV” and, later, “TRL.”

MTV as a music destination still exists: There are three MTV music video channels on Pluto TV. And the little-watched MTV Classic, available on cable and satellite providers including DirecTV, offers up a steady diet of old music videos. But there’s no personality or life to those channels, which are also run on autopilot. Take some of those elements, add in library fare and tease out some of the MTV exclusive content found on Paramount Plus, and you’ve got at least a channel that serves as a sales tool for why the brand still means something to multiple generations.

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