When did MTV Jump the Shark?

[Unocal 76]

I grew up when MTV was really, really cool.

The wicked awesome hair and music.

Shows like Remote Control, Beavis and Butthead, Celebrity Deathmatch.

I want my MTV. Top 10 and top 20 list.

The Headbanger's Ball.

When did it all go wrong?

If you were to ask me, I say when TRL went off the air.

I mean, even in the later 2000s when the pop/boy bands went away and other stuff came up, that was the one thing you could count on in some ways.

When that went by the wayside, that was the final nail in the coffin for me.

[Kick Your Face]

It seemed like MTV was heading for the worst by the time Celebrity Deathmatch ended. I'm going to say late 2002/early 2003.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Depends how you look at it. MTV could be perceived as jumping the shark when it started emphasising non-music television, but without looking at the numbers I suspect that made it even more popular.

I think the real shark-jumping moment (and that is meant to be the peak it comes down from) was probably around the Jackass era, because after that nothing else ever had the same crossover appeal and once YouTube got traction MTV stopped mattering. At all.

[Reflecto]

Well, the MTV oral history put the ending points around when "Real World" hit, and that does seem like a good enough moment for it.

[Deleted]

It depends on your viewpoint. Many people believe MTV jumped the shark (or boned the fish, as I would prefer calling it now) when they stopped focusing on what the "M" stood for. That's how I look at it.

[Munkie91087]

With the internet, a strictly music television network would fail miserably. So MTV was just ahead of the game when it comes to realizing that playing music videos wasn't a viable money making endeavor. To be honest, I think their moment of shark jumping has nothing to do with not playing music and more to do with Teen Mom. That show is everything wrong with reality tv.

[Welfare Willis]

Carson Daly.

[Urethra Franklin]

The Osbournes.

Real World predated the Osbournes, but it was Ozzy and co. who got the mainstream notoriety and, after that, music fell to the wayside in favour of all manner of reality.

[Ben Wyatt]

Jan 28, 2014 11:20:34 GMT -5 Reflecto said:

Well, the MTV oral history put the ending points around when "Real World" hit, and that does seem like a good enough moment for it.

The Real World changed televsion on the whole, and not for the better, IMO

[chazraps]

We all know that every 5 years, a different group of people can pinpoint a different moment when they lost interest in MTV, right? Like, the network changed a lot to be in-tune with whatever youth movements and interests were gaining popularity.

Plus, a lot of these programs we have nostalgic glasses on for were pretty of their time and some really haven't aged that well. I mean, how many classic episodes of "Celebrity Deathmatch" were there, really?

It's a channel that's always been about not just music, but the culture surrounding music. From Just Say Julie Brown to Randy of the Redwoods to Jesse Camp to Snooki, it's evolution, baby. Of course, we all have our preferences, but there is a healthy segment of the MTV purist population who thinks the channel jumped the shark when "Thriller" came out and videos went from shoestring freeform experiments to elaborate productions. These people are often jerks, but I can understand what these somewhat abrupt changes can mean to something we had held so dear.

That's the beauty and the beast of MTV. It's glory days were entirely different glory days to anyone who's ever regularly watched it.

[rocket]

Jan 28, 2014 11:20:34 GMT -5 Reflecto said:

Well, the MTV oral history put the ending points around when "Real World" hit, and that does seem like a good enough moment for it.

That's way up there.

I saw an article recently where they pegged around 1998 as when MTV started really going after the teens-and-younger crowd, and that's where it probably went down this course once and for all:

www.vulture.com/2013/11/music-industry-1998-beginning-of-the-end.html

At the same time, MTV was getting a lot more data about who was actually watching MTV, and, turns out, it was overwhelmingly kids between the ages of 6 and 15.” This created the perfect bubblegum storm: Total Request Live, hosted by Carson Daly, debuted in 1998, focusing largely on the era's biggest hit-makers: The Spice Girls were already huge, the Backstreet Boys were finally breaking in America after conquering Europe, *NSYNC released its debut album, and a former Mouseketeer named Britney Spears would sell 9 million copies of her first single, “… Baby One More Time.” (The album with the same name would be the second best-selling of 1999, after the Backstreet Boys’ Millennium.)

[Reflecto]

Jan 28, 2014 13:16:55 GMT -5 Ben Wyatt said:

Jan 28, 2014 11:20:34 GMT -5 Reflecto said:

Well, the MTV oral history put the ending points around when "Real World" hit, and that does seem like a good enough moment for it.

The Real World changed televsion on the whole, and not for the better, IMO

Well, it's because of how it hurt TV that, if I had to clarify it more- I'd say MTV jumped the shark with Season 2 of "The Real World."

Before that, MTV had a lot of shows that may not have been truly "music", but didn't hurt the channel in the least. Even season 1 didn't.

However, the first season of "Real World" was a social experiment- no scripts, no actors, just people doing what people would do- which kind of fit the MTV mold. After season 1, though, the Real World cast members inherently knew what succeeded on "Real World", and became self-aware that they were on a hit MTV series, engineering it to be famous and fit certain "roles" to emulate season 1. From there, you get the rest of MTV's reality TV style- which caused the shark jump.

[Crappler El 0 M]

I think MTV really wants to keep that teen/early 20s audience, so much so that they alienate viewers in the mid/late 20s and thirties, just because it's micro-focused on the teen/early 20s demo.

[Deleted]

The very second the Real World hit.

MT was long gone by the time TRL came around, that's for certain.

[Cela]

Jan 28, 2014 12:36:56 GMT -5 Urethra Franklin said:

The Osbournes.

Real World predated the Osbournes, but it was Ozzy and co. who got the mainstream notoriety and, after that, music fell to the wayside in favour of all manner of reality.

That's where I'd put it as well. The true shifting point from Music to "reality".

[AFN: Judge Shred]

Jan 28, 2014 12:31:02 GMT -5 Welfare Willis said:

Carson Daly.

Not even, he pushed for underground artists to get more exposure. He spearheaded Skaturday (which only aired once as far as I know). The dude cared about music and wanted more on the air.

[salz4life]

Jan 28, 2014 11:20:34 GMT -5 Reflecto said:

Well, the MTV oral history put the ending points around when "Real World" hit, and that does seem like a good enough moment for it.

That's probably accurate. The success of the Real World led to them going for more entertainment value than actual music.

[Munkie91087]

If MTV still played nothing but music videos, people would just complain they aren't playing the "right" music videos.

[Lancers]

When you turn 25 years old.

[Deleted]

It's heyday was long ago, but it died completely as a legitimate thing with the rise of reality television.