MTV is increasing their “entertainment output” this year. This means more shows like Pimp My Ride, My Super Sweet 16, Scarred, Next and all manner of reality shows variating on the “lots of people in one house competing to date super rich/attractive/famous arsehole” format. This also means LESS music videos. So the station that revolutionised the music industry, now is increasingly having less and less to do with music.
But it's OK, don't panic, because that's just the flagship channel. The clever executives at MTV foresaw this and since the birth of Sky Digital, have been gradually inventing new channels for whatever may take your fancy. There's MTV Base, MTV Dance, MTV Hits, MTV 2, MTV Flux and soon, with any luck there'll be MTV Polka, MTV Bath Time and MTV Jeremy Kyle (although MTV Dance isn't too far from that peg).
So breathe a sigh of relief because if you don't want to watch their line-up of entertainment-reality shows, you can just watch your favourite music videos on another channel right? Wrong. You can't. Because they're played on every. MTV. Channel. Ever. Even VH1 and VH1 Classic. Is nothing sacred any more? Resistance is futile!
So here's my cut out and ignore guide to some of MTV's flagship “reality entertainment”:
Pimp My Ride: Like DIY SOS for cars. Excitable morons get their clapped out moron-mobiles “pimped” by master of ceremonies, Xzibit. The cars end up with an array of unnecessary accessories such as TFT monitors, hot tubs, cinema screens, barbecues, dry ice machines, Olympic size swimming pools and celebrity nightclubs. Astonishingly, only the last two of that list is made up, but watch this space. The show was even exported to the UK where instead of a multi millionaire rapper, we got a bishop's son and bonafide cockwipe in the shape of Radio One DJ Tim bloody Westwood, and because of our MOT laws, the pimps are more BHS than Louis Vitton.
My Super Sweet 16: Should be called “My Super Spoilt Lifestyle and My Stupid Parents Who Are Willing To Give It To Me” wherein pretentious and over-rich sods squeal to mummy and daddy to give them the most memorable 16th birthday party ever. As the show goes on, the parents become more pitiful and the kids become more punchable. The birthday parties are sometimes so elaborate they make the BRIT awards look positively cheap, and invariably end in the reincarnated spawn of Satan receiving a ridiculously expensive car to drive off into the sunset and run over any peasants who DARE get in their way.
Next: The Gong Show for desperate singletons. Basically five prospective, happy go lucky (but obviously desperate) partners sit on a bus and one by one, go on a date with an attractive (but big headed) boy or girl. When the date turns sour, the self-serving arsehole can say “Next” and out comes the next person from the bus, like a lamb to the slaughter. It's OK though, because the dumped date gets a $1 for every minute the date lasted, but it's actually slave labour when you consider some of the egoists they have to spend their time with.
Things have actually come full circle now with the recent launch of MTV ®, where the ® stands for “rated” because the channel is dedicated to showing the reality shows that “made MTV famous” and features no music videos at all. Ones to watch out for are “Scarred” (“Jackass lite”), “Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County” (real tossers instead of acting tossers), “Engaged and Underage” (speaks for itself) and of course “Cribs” (“Through the Keyhole” with less guess-work and more showing off).
However, it's not all bad, some of the reality programs MTV show are genuinely entertaining. Obviously there was painfully missed and former jewel in the crown, “The Osbournes”. Now we have shows like “Hogan Knows Best” and “Run's House” which adequately fill the gap left by The Osbournes and it's a real treat for the jealous sadists (i.e. me) to see people so rich they are almost shitting money, struggle with troublesome children and everyday mediocrities like going food shopping or even switching their computer on.
So I've proved nothing. As long as MTV keeps producing celebrity-led car-crash reality shows with lovable, I'll keep watching, no matter how much other shit they might churn out. MTV have got my number. Bastards. Addictive TV producing bastards.