The most overused joke in pop culture used to go: MTV was pretty good back when it used to play music. That halcyon time being a very, very long time ago indeed. So long ago, in fact, that 50% of you probably don’t even realize what the “M” in MTV means. This article is not about that, so don’t worry about us running that dad joke into the ground one more time.
Instead, let us harp on another media trend. In all fairness, it’s hard to fault Millennials for not knowing what MTV is when the network itself doesn’t even know what it is. Tune into MTV this very second, and there is a 90% chance that you are smack dab in a Ridiculousness marathon, a long-running hit show that features curated viral videos, hosted by Rob Dyrdek and his buddies. MTV’s leadership has masterminded its own descent into irrelevance for over a decade. How did it get this far?
Unlike other channels that tried to diversify their programming and fought tooth and nail to preserve their identity in a changing media apocalypse, MTV opted for a Faustian deal with one of their few bankable stars at the time, skating personality Dyrdek. Through his savvy and ambition, he overpowered and outsmarted an entire TV network, until it became his personal business venture, assimilated Borg-style into his sports/apparel/media empire. Yeah, he’s not the actual CEO, we know — he’s even more powerful than that.
Yes, MTV got rid of music long ago, but an updated version of the old joke would ponder what happened to all the outrageous original programming that kept the channel afloat in the nineties and aughts before Dyrdek was a household name. Raid your parents’ VHS collection, and you might find some vintage episodes of Road Rules, The Real World (one of the first reality TV shows), Beavis and Butthead, Viva La Bam, Teen Mom, Jersey Shore, or the classic that defined a whole generation of Limp Bizkit fans with frosted tips, Jackass. For those older millennials who grew up watching Celebrity Deathmatch or tuned into Choose or Lose, they would probably not recognize MTV as the same entity and assume there was some mistake.
MTV, the once venerable purveyors of culture to the most prized demographic in all entertainment, was stacked with irresponsible yet irresistible morons, weirdos, and all-around terrible role models. Through a machine that pumped out celebrities through its numerous programs, spin-offs, and marketing that appealed to the pre-viral video aesthetic, there was no shortage of programming options. In just a few short years, it was all gone.
Related: Jersey Shore: What’s Next for the MTV Reality Show Franchise?
The End of TV Channels, the Beginning of “Content Factories”
As streaming renders the traditional idea of the TV network increasingly obsolete, the shift to branding takes center stage. Most content that MTV has made since 2010 can be viewed without even needing to tune into the channel, either via syndication deals or streaming. “I think more and more we look at each of those brands as content factories, as makers of content for a particular group or demographic or psychographic group that exists beyond the cable channel,” said Showtime CEO David Nevins (via Variety). MTV is a perfect case study.
The writing was on the wall when the network offered the budding mogul $125,000 an episode for the fourth season of his show Rob & Big (via Pop Culture). In a fairly short time span, Dyrdek and his now deceased friend, Christopher "Big Black" Boykin, had snagged several slots in the network's lineup, including spinoffs like Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory and Wild Grinders among others, where he acted as creator and producer. The majority of his output tends to be reality-based, leveraging his personality to generate multiple programs that centered around his life and those of his friends in the skating community.
Related: Dan Levy: From MTV Host to Multi-Emmy Award-Winner
Overnight, the chill Ohio-skateboarder-turned-cuthroat-Hollywood-hustler became the face of the sputtering network, and that says more about the state of entertainment in the streaming era than him. Dyrdek made logical moves, and it's hard to think he was plotting to take over a wounded network. The days of MTV owning their stars (ask Adam Curry) was over. And with it, the days of TV networks as lifestyle brands that were themselves fashion statements, was just as dead. News updates with Kurt Loder? Gone. Debuting new music videos? Who cares. Think of current-day MTV as a mall. You stop by when it's convenient after work or on a slow day, but it's not a hot destination like it was in 1988, or even 2008 for that matter. It's an afterthought, a place that somehow still exists, though you can get everything you want elsewhere and much easier.
All Roads Lead to Rob
For MTV, long past its lofty peak when it dictated pop culture trends, there was nothing unusual about this. It was inevitable. Always looking for an influencer to lend them credibility, they squandered their monopoly. In doing so, they ceded all power of the network to the flat-brim wearing impresario who didn’t even finish high school. Though, considering his net worth is a staggering $100 million (self-made, by the way), sitting through algebra class would have been a complete waste of time when he understands marketing and the entertainment business better than Fortune 500 CEOs. And the label "influencer" is no insult, as Dyrdek perfected the model of how to build and expand a brand by taking advantage of dinosaur media models, using it to sell his merchandise instead of the other way around. Teen culture used to be all about the latest hit single and ninety cent ringtones, now it's all about the licensed sneakers deals and sponsored hashtags.
Truth is, without Dyrdek, MTV would probably be dead by now. He was the only one that had any vision or charisma to keep the identity-less ship afloat. They need him far more than he needs them, and for that, we maybe should ask him why he hasn’t moved on yet.
