Shouldn't it be easy to make a Music TV Channel that kicks MTV's ass??

Actually, you're argument is naive. MTV has never been like that. If it was, it would be the channel to watch for what you're interested in. MTV has been playing top 100 billboard selections since day one over and over and over until people lost interest. To make their channel interesting, they started putting on original programming geared toward kids, when people have been saying all along "play more music, different kinds of music, please". When 120 minutes was on, it was stupidly placed at midnight on Sunday. MTV is owned by CBS, along with a whole slew of other companies. They make money from payola. They are paid off to play the videos major companies are promoting.

And, yet, channels that have unique, if at times unpopular programming, stay afloat just fine year after year and generate a decent profit and have a loyal following.

Saying MTV Base is the only one worth watching is kind of silly. In America, I'm not aware of MTV Base. Is it a show or a channel? What is it?

Literally, everyone I speak to EVER about MTV, which is not often, but occasionally comes up with almost anyone, doesn't like it, doesn't really get what's going on and prefers VH-1 by far and has no interest in obtaining MTV2 by any means. There is very definitely a strong demographic in America of people ages 20-35 who want to watch music programming, but don't know where or when the hell to tune in to watch the stuff they want to see.

Put a special concert spot on every day for whatever music genre that day of the week represents, similar to Reverb or those oh-so-rare MTV concert events, and you'd be guaranteed to generate interest around that show alone. People would look forward to seeing a concert of their favorite band. There's so many bands and styles of music, you could go on and on before you ever had to repeat a show. You could have your request type shows, but rather than choosing from a list that's already been chosen FOR you by record company execs, you could simply vote on the internet or through and 800 number. THAT show would be interesting to because out of the blue, you could have some 10 year old video that a bunch of people decided they wanted to see again. There's a lot you could do with music programming that doesn't have to include boring interludes of reality tv.

Especially, if you charge a subscriber fee of $2 a month for uncensored 24-hour music programming, people would be interested to watch real music tv again and they'd pay for it. I believe, over time, the interest generated in a channel like this would cause MTV/CBS to resort to some foul play with cable companies, trying to force it off the air. But, I also think MTV would do all they could to copy the format on one of its channels.

Hell, if you had some sort of "Underground"/Breaking Artists concert show every day that featured the Strokes one day and the Toilet Boys the next, you'd have companies clamoring to give you payola because those two acts alone would get people to say, "hey, that show's cool". I don't know shit about hip-hop, but I'm sure there's some breaking hip-hop acts that haven't made their first 5 billion dollars yet that people would be drooling to see get their big break on national tv.

MTV Base = channel, at least in UK.

in many ways i completely agree with your argument - i'd like MTV to actually show decent music programmes in varieties of genres etc, and not just show a small number of recent videos. but presumably MTV have thought through all the various money-making options, and their current setup is obviously best profit wise, otherwise they would change it.

Doesn't matter. They are the only option. This gives them the ability to do whatever they want and what they choose to do is make the most money they possibly can from payola.

When I say "kick MTVs ass" I don't mean "make more money than MTV." Who cares? If you have a decent size company and a decent profit, you're making money. MTV started out poor as hell. That's why they've evolved into this... SHIT. I don't think they realize that music is different now. There's more options out there. Music programming doesn't have to be as boring as it was when MTV first started out with their endlessly repeated Prince, Madonna and Micheal Jackson videos.

Any competition would force everyone in tv to reconsider MTVs current programming choices and the choices of the execs that are spending much money promoting a handful of copycat bands. They THINK they know what people (kids) want, but they just have really terrible programs and programming. The only full-on event they do is the MTV Awards. The rest is payola and catering to the insecurities of teenagers. MTV really tries to be the kids' friend so that the kid turns to it for coolness when the kid wants to be cool. There are people out there who are not interested in any of this crap, just music videos, concerts, interviews and some shows here and there like "Cribs" or "Behind The Music". And people want to watch blocks of music that they're interested in, not Creed followed by Britney Spears and Sum41 with a dash of P Diddy. Where's the logic in that?

Capitalism doesn't want just a 'decent' profit - assuming MTV is a public company, then shareholders want the largest return on their investment possible - they don't care what the company does, whether it shows quality music or not.

If there's enough room for Shotime, HBO, HBO2, Cinemax, Cinemax2, there's enough room for an all-music channel. What might start out as "enough profit" could very well lead to huge profit. You're basing your point of view on capitalism, which I understand, but it's not as if people start up stations and ventures every day saying, "Can we make more money that Xerox or Microsoft? No? Okay, forget it, then." There are plenty of labels out there that would be thrilled you have 2 hours a day devoted to their kind of music and plenty of Neilson-ratings homes as well. The public interest would lead to increased interest on the part of the record industry. And, just because you charge $2 a month doesn't mean you can't run a few commercials every 15 minutes. $2 is nothing. A lot of channels cost $2-5 extra to add. The fact that it's uncensored would justify the $2 fee.

Also, think about this: music stations specialize in certain kinds of music. KROQ doesn't play Britney Spears. MTV is a disorganized mess. If you're going to play random unrelated stuff, put it in a Top 40 show once a day or a couple times a week or something. On MTV, you are forced to watch what record companies are paying for you to watch. It's like watching endless commercials.

m jemmeson: I agree with you about hiphop/r 'n' b videos. While I'm not a fan of the music in the least, those videos have the best & most booty...

Imagine what they'd be like if they weren't CENSORED! See, my channel will rule. You'll have rap stars doin' girls with big butts for at least 2 hours a day. Not, to mention the copious streams of profanity will be fully in tact.

though I usually, don't care about ,; punctuation and writing... I must admit lately. My punctuation is, much worse. Will try to improve that. And, my spelling to! I wish you could edit Greenspun.

And, my spelling to

That's "too" .

..and yes, MTV sucks and someone should start a new channel with music on it. It could be all concert films, all videos, all interviews & documentaries, or a combination of all these.

Blows my mind to think that there isn't a bigger market for it. (Or that the market remains untapped.)

Sheez, I know I spelled "too" wrong. I did that on purpose cuz I saw that I wrote "to" earlier rather than "too" and it really throws a sentence off. I was actually noticing it's hard to read almost everything I wrote up above, what with the odd punctuation and type o's.

Glad someone agrees with me on here that MTV sucks.

I think it's a great idea and would probably be moderately successfull. Having said that, MTV2 would probably steal your best ideas and put you out of business in a year. I live in Pennsylvania where Comcast is our local cable behemoth and they run a program (affiliated with livemusicchannel.com I believe) every night at 8-10 featuring live concerts from lots of cool bands in every different genre. I watch it often and it's been on for close to a year now so I assume someone else is watching too.

First off we'll have to reregulate the media industry. MTV has engaged in very anti-competitive practices that have made it very hard for any potential competitors to be even played side by side from the same cable provider.

that aside, i'd like to start a public music type of channel funded by our tax dollars that would play a wide variety of music, especially classical, "world" and jazz. documentries would be played most often on fridays and weekends. other than the usual videos and live performances, there would also be talent contests aired nightly during the weekends as well. music critics and artists would have thier own little talkback live during the afternoons. all local stations would have to focus on the local scene and often play local artist's music along with interviews and live shows, local clubs would be visited and profiled. issues and controversies about the music world and current events affecting the rest of the world delt with in a non-condescending fashion, all sides dealt with fairly and given a voice in daily news shows. in essence, it would be a station for the people and by the people, unlike the current shit on television like PBS, MTV/VH1 and CNN.

I stopped watching MTV in 1987.