Recently Viacom and MTV Networks laid off 850 people in order to deal with the current economic crisis. Having worked there I can tell you that while economics definitely had something to do with it I doubt it was linked specifically to this crisis.

MTV has a long history of hiring people in mass and then laying them off randomly. Usually these people are talented producers and writers forced to exist in the world of “Permalance”, a state where MTV can overwork and underpay them without giving them benefits or job security. However I think this time MTV may have finally be at the center of a fire that will consume it.

MTV is a dying animal, a slovenly mutt laying in it’s own blood hoping that it will heal before the jackals arrive and tear the carcass to shreds. Underground music critics and social analysts have been talking about the death of MTV for years but that’s not what I mean here. I’m talking about a cultural shift, a sense to the mass audience that MTV is no longer anything but the empty shell of what it started out as.

Where once MTV stood for innovation and the youthful mindset of challenging the status quo it is now simply a marketing tool, an expensive and self-aggrandizing look at how money can ruin anything.

This is not sour grapes about what happened to me during my time at MTV. I know that’s hard to believe but this many years later I harbor no ill will towards the company at all. I don’t believe in them or what they do but I’m not writing this to rattle my sword at them. My hope here is that after MTV burns from the ashes it will rise again to be something that could truly be wonderful.

A high up executive at MTV once told me that even though MTV’s programs don’t grab great ratings the advertising world pays a higher price because the MTV brand still carries weight. Having spoken to people I know in the advertising department that ideal is no longer true. MTV’s fat cat mentality is finally starting to burn bridges and advertisers are starting to see that paying through the nose to be part of Road Rules 398 isn’t a smart idea.

So the advertising dollars aren’t rolling in the way they used to and that has combined with the shifting opinions by people on MTV. The Video Music Awards used to be the thing to watch and be part of, almost like a twentysomething Oscars. This year the awards were a complete failure, laughed at and ridiculed as well as met with less than stellar ratings.

Part of that was the obvious ego-stroke of Britney Spears who, the year before, MTV had humiliated by sticking her on the show during her break down period. At that point people thought MTV did it to be exploitive and the channel got bad press. This year’s fawning over Spears mostly proved that these video awards were simply a popularity contest or an advertising excuse. Music hadn’t been a factor here for years. True this has been a reality for a long time but now it’s starting to catch on with the public at large.

Another huge failure for MTV was the loss of TRL, which had been the channel’s flagship program for ten years. A live music program that included guests, videos, a live audience etc seems like something that would garner constant interest from fans. Especially if you add in the idea that the fans chose the videos giving teenagers who feel they have no control over their own lives the idea that they control something.

The fall of this idea came largely because MTV decided to use TRL to play favorites with various celebrities and record labels as opposed to focusing on the fans. One insider explained to me that videos by certain performers e.g. Britney Spears, Puff Daddy, etc were kept on the show for the full 60 days videos were allowed to remain. This gave the celebs time to shoot another video and slide it into the place of the old one. This consistency led to boredom from viewers and that led to folks turning the channel.

MTV fears change where it once championed innovation, focuses on repetition where it once came up with unique programming and after years of that the check is coming due. To be honest The Real World was a great idea, a true innovation in programming and it launched the reality TV world that seems to have held this country’s attention for so long. The problem was never Real World; it was how the MTV Brass handled it. The show, which focused on real strangers forced to live together, was interesting for the first four or five seasons because the people picked to be in it were all varied and unique.

As the show dragged on MTV began “casting” it in hopes of raising the drama level. While they didn’t hand out specific parts to actors and actresses they did cast a certain type in order to facilitate issues. For instance they would cast the “Street Kid”, “The Slut”, “The Bitch”, “The Token Gay Person” so forth and so on. That led to a complete lack of any organic relationships. Soon the show became stilted and boring, the public grew bored and the Real World became a punchline.
I remember Tom Freston (a higher up at MTV) explaining to a meeting of MTV Employees with great passion that the idea of MTV existing simply for 13 to 25 year olds was preposterous. I felt bad watching him talk because I could tell his ideology came from what MTV had started out being and not what it was.

I’m supposing that ideology became a threat to the bean counters because Freston was pushed out of the company a few years back. That’s another issue returning to bite MTV’s collective ass, their fear of anyone who speaks out against the status quo.

I felt it when I worked there whenever I offered an opinion while others had their creative ideas subjected to harsh censorship. A great example of that was MTV News’ You Hear It First, which had been conceptualized as a way to give a spotlight to up and coming bands that were buzz worthy but still not in the mainstream consciousness.

That structure for the show lasted about three weeks and then MTV officials started dictating who would be featured during the episodes. At one point Alicia Keys was forced into You Hear It First about a week before her first album came out. Keys had J Records, a million dollar video and a press machine of epic proportions behind her and yet we were focusing on her for You Hear It First? It made no sense and when those first entrusted with the idea complained we were met with condescension and parent-like dismissal.

Another sin MTV committed which is now coming back to haunt it is their complete inability to admit they were wrong or uninformed about a pop culture movement. When I worked there myself and several others began pushing the comic book movie idea. Spider-Man and the X-Men had been Box Office champions and the buzz coming out of the comic world was that huge film companies were beginning to eye comic book properties. Our push to get on board with this came from our true love of comic books and was met with things like “Nobody cares about comic books” or “Those movies were flukes”. The MTV Brass didn’t get so therefore it didn’t exist.

MTV ignored the comic book movement until it was so popular they couldn’t anymore. Then, instead of admitting “Hey we’re new to this” MTV threw up “Splashpage” on MTV.com and started attacking the comic book movie idea as though they were with it the whole time. This might have worked when MTV News was one of the only youth oriented new outlets but now with dozens on TV and hundreds on the Internet, everybody knows who was there from the start and who wasn’t. MTV came off looking like the popular kid who now comes to school wearing a Batman T-shirt and pretending he loves comic books.
It’s not just comic books that have made MTV look uninformed. The sad attempt to re-launch The Headbangers Ball, MTV2 going from an all video network to just another show clogged MTV property, the lack of intelligent News pieces and so on. People are starting to catch on to this hypocrisy and the cultural shift is really starting to effect the only thing MTV cares about, their bottom line.

Journalists, critics and the well informed have long spoken out against the crimes against culture MTV has been committing for ten years plus. MTV was always able to ignore these claims by bringing in the youth market that via the suburbs, rural America and the tweens. MTV remained a dominant force during the infancy of the Internet and the time when major TV stations scoffed at youth oriented news shows.

Now the Internet is in the drivers seat and TV stations are hurling new youth programming at us every week. MTV’s stagnant attitude and constant need to remain safe has lead to it being seen as the old un-cool Uncle that still says “Gnarly” and “Rad” and causes mass amounts of douche chills at the family cookout.

If MTV wants examples it has to look no farther than it’s own backyard. During a time of great economic stress in the country they are playing shows about spoiled rich kids throwing tantrums or the excess living of the common celebrity. MTV programming has railroaded MTV News into little more than a footnote as well as pushing out News Reporters who know what their doing for pretty faces who love to ride bandwagons. MTV has recently given a block of time for an in depth look at Britney Spears in an era when everybody has seen enough about her.

MTV’s current problem of seeming old and out of touch is effecting the perception of the channel in an industry where perception is everything. If the kids perceive you as old they shy away, the advertisers perceive you as unable to tap the youth market and they pull away, suddenly the perception becomes reality in a very dollars and cents style.

With these layoffs MTV got rid of a large portion of people who were talented, committed and had great ideas on trying to reignite the era of MTV when it was the end all be all to culture in this country. Now MTV is left again with their out-of-touch executives and a few stragglers who are too terrified of losing their jobs to speak out. Once again instead of looking at the real problems MTV has just slashed and burned away people’s lives to save a buck. Congratulations MTV you’ve now added cold and callous to your reputation of old and out of touch.

The foundations of MTV are cracked and shaking so a fall is inevitable. How this will happen is unclear but I’m hoping it comes with a new sense of what MTV could be. Clear out everybody who is in a decision making position at that channel and start filling the seats with not just young minds but innovative ones. Rebuild MTV News and let it be an unbiased beacon that sheds light on all music and gives support to a staff that knows what they are doing. Let the current regime fall so that there can be a rebuilding of the channel less mired in political and financial red tape.

This is your wake up call MTV; this financial and cultural turn is something you need to listen to in order to become relevant again. Throwing money at the problem won’t work, firing people won’t work, thumping your chest and claiming “Hey we’re MTV’ won’t work. MTV is used to being the big bully on the playground and by sheer force of cash flow has kept dominance over recess for years. The problem now is that everybody else has graduated and moved on, leaving an overgrown and out of shape bully sitting alone in a playground wondering what the hell happened.