Do They Still Want Their MTV? Yeah but hold the Sweet Sixteens, Bam Margeras etc...

There is no doubt that MTV, the cable network you grew up with is in a midlife crisis at the age of 25. Over the years the network has shifted from music television to reality television, pushing off most of its music programming on spin offs like MTV2. Now the cable net is attempting to play a game of catch up. Regardless of it's flashy website properties, MTV lost big when the sale of Myspace went to News Corp. When that happened MTV found itself in a spot where instead of them owning a site which is flooded by MTVers, where they could have their way with them, they had to now fight even harder to attract those eyes. On top of their web failures, nobody seems to be watching anymore. In an article in this morning's New York Times, David Carr, the man who hated on the New Observer, takes us inside on where they fell off and what they are doing to get back up again, topped with the usual overzealous executive quotes. As a brand, MTV has been beyond durable, managing to reinvent itself continuously and in doing so presenting a fast-moving target that left many would-be rivals in its wake. Shows like MTV’s “Real World” deserve much of the credit, or blame, for demonstrating that reality can make for compelling viewing. But finding the edge was simpler before competition for its core demographic started coming from all fronts, from video games and social-networking Web sites to amateur clips on YouTube. And consumers can use the Web to come up with their own reality narratives — the current transformation of Britney Spears from pop superstar to bald alien is pretty tough for anyone to compete with. Do They Still Want Their MTV? [NYT]