For the first time in almost 30 years, signifying the end of an era, MTV has overhauled its iconic logo and has removed the "music television" tag. The new logo debuted on-air Monday. The shift seems to confirm what we've all known for years: Following the cancellation of TRL and the success of Jersey Shore, The Hills and the Real World spin-offs, music is no longer MTV’s main priority. Having "Music Television" on there was just a constant reminder that MTV was branding itself one way, programming itself another. The people who watch it today (mainly 12 to 16 year old girls), don’t refer to MTV as music television. They don’t have the same emotional connection that the people who previously grew up with the channel do. The only people who have been challenging MTV to play more music videos are the one's who remember the good ol' days of past. The channel has official evolved into something different. 12-16 year old girls LOVE MTV and probably have no idea why the name is MTV in the first place. From this demographic perspective, what's the point in watching a channel in hopes of seeing your favorite artists' music video, when you could spend 10 seconds online pulling it up whenever you want. There will ALWAYS be new 12 year olds in this world, and they will ALWAYS want something different than the last. MTV is simply capitalizing on future business by removing "music television".
Although it's easy to see their reason for changing the logo, I vow to remain one of the critics who will continue to chastise the network for it's lack of music. Call me old fashioned, but as Justin "He's So Dreamy, The Only Man I Would Go Gay For" Timberlake put it, we don't want to see the Simpsons on reality television.
The network will likely continue to schedule their Video Music Awards and provide ancillary between-commercial coverage to musical figures. But as we recently saw with the Grammys, they're officially the new VMA's.
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