This an open letter to the executives and producers and whoever else works at MTVDear MTV,I don't have to tell you that Britney's performance last night at the VMA's was less than lackluster.
NO. Actually I DO have to tell you because apparently as you are all in charge and despite the fact that you run the show every year, you didn't have a enough gumption to stop a musical train wreck before it was set to stream to millions of viewers across this nation and the world.
(Sarah Silverman pun not included) .
Millions of viewers. That's something that has been missing for quite some time giving your ratings as of late. I sit back now and I am unable to think of ANY of my friends that even watches MTV anymore.
And I'm only 24 years old.
Back in the day (Ok, high school really) I worshiped the box that MTV came out of. 120 minutes, Top 20 Countdown, MTV News (BIG SHOUTOUT to Kurt Loder and John Norris), and most especially the VMAs. Every year I made sure that whatever night the show aired, my schedule was cleared. (well what schedule a teenager can have).
Every year I looked forward to the announcement of that year's MC; and boy were they great: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Roseanne, Dennis Miller and most especially Chris Rock.
The performances were usually better than those at the tired-ass Grammys. I expected pomp & circumstance but mainly, Musicianship and Performance. Those acts of yesteryear, when they came to the VMAs, they PERFORMED. The other major factor was that they had numerous awards, almost more than they had air time to give out. With real categories like, Best Alternative, Best Group, Best Hard Rock Performance, Best R & B, Video of the Year. The flow of the show was usually chill and people looked happy to be there.
No longer. A little bird told me something strange last night. Did you seriously give out a 'Triple Threat' award to Justin Timberlake last night??? Timberlake is talented but how is that even in a category suitable for a Music Awards Program? That category belongs at the MTV Movie Awards (which are the only consistent awards show this network has left).
The last time that I watched the VMAs in their entirety was 2001. And all I caught of the the 2007 VMAs was the first five minutes. It reinforced to me exactly what direction MTV has sadly gone in.
MTV, YOU HAVE GONE DOWN THE DRAIN. I say this with the tiniest hope that the network may one day recover some of its former glory. But I won't be holding my breath.
You let market research and even economics trump the manifesto that began this network 26 years ago: ALL MUSIC (VIDEOS), ALL THE TIME!
Anytime that I happened to flip to MTV in the past 10 years, I saw less and less videos. Fuck, MTV DOESN'T EVEN PLAY MUSIC VIDEOS ANYMORE!!!! All your programming is invested in reality television such as the Real World, Road Rules (please, please retire them!), Made, True Life, Pimp My Ride, Making the Band and the latest version of dumb blondes with too much time and cash on their hands, The Hills.
Now, recently I read an article in Esquire where they photographed who I think the the Head VP in charge of programming. (I will fact check this later). What I got out of his short interview was that the MTV's attitude was basically: Fuck it. You can't fight the tide. Look at how well these other networks are doing with reality t.v. We've jumped on the bandwagon but we'll make sure we do SOME public good campaigning, i.e. Choose or Lose (which they've been doing for every election since 1992, so it's not exactly new programing guys).
You've acquiesced and now its time recognize that you've sold your network soul to the tune of profit margins and what I like to call the ADD/ADHD Generation. You've decided to make everything like a Vegas Strip Hooker: underage, all flash, no substance.
People actually used to demand, "I want my MTV!". Now, you're lucky if you can get anyone with half a brain not to mutter, "MTV? Is that shit still on?".
Yes, the shit is still on and there's more of it. Best example: last night's VMAs. Terrible. Horrendous. Mismanaged. Short.
A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME. At that was even after Alicia Keys performed.
How the hell did this network drop the ball with what was once one of the biggest, highest rated awards shows in television history, and for argument's sake, a channel that WAS a basic cable ratings giant? I'd like to point what I think are the usual suspects:
1. When the network started moving up the date of the VMAs from the first week in September to the last week in August (last night's performance not included in that).
2. When they moved the awards show from New York to other locations. Miami sucked. L.A. sucked. Las Vegas sucked ass. Take a hint!
3. Changing the filming and format of the show. The VMAs used to be filmed live, with an extensive red carpet pre-show that was a decent lead-up to the main-event. Now they've got an hour, hurried pre-show and a lackluster main show. They also cut down the show from a little over 3 hours to 2 hours.
4. Since they stopped playing videos, more specifically a VARIETY of videos, they've let a few artists (if you can call them that) and bands dominate the roster. As a result, less video nominations and less bands to perform and accept said nominations. Can we spell M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y?
5. Back to Artists & Bands: Because MTV cared more about record sales and ringtones they haven't been investing ANY programming time towards musicians with substance (and I'm not talking about dime bags here!), musicians who CAN ACTUALLY PLAY THEIR DAMN INSTRUMENTS!!! There are no World Music videos, no real electronica/house/drum & bass/etc. videos, NOT EVEN DECENT POP VIDEOS!!!!
6. TRL. When it first started out that had a credible radio personality (Carson Daly) and they made sure to actually play the videos that fans called in to request. Now its shortened to a half hour, aired only a couple times a week and with almost no music but plenty of pseudo-celebrities hawking their latest designer handbags and shitty movies.
7. Reality television. How can the announcer keep a straight face (voice) when saying, "Welcome to the 20th season of Real World!". Twenty? The first Real World came on the air in 1991. Now, I'm no math whiz but 2007 - 1991 = 16. Why are you airing this show that frequently? Its not St. Elsewhere dammit!
Add to that the fact that MTV would rather create more shows with people cutting themselves to look like their favorite celebrities, offensive, no-talent comedians and brainless/deviant young twenty-somethings who should not be allowed to grace the television screen, let alone reproduce!
Knowing MTV, they'd probably give the demon spawn their own show! Also, enough with the cars! Rather than pimping someone's ride why not just buy them A BRAND NEW CAR. Oh, my bad. The network only reserves new cars for all of the SPOILED, SELF-CENTERED, EGOMANIACAL MINIATURE CEO-IN-WAITING BRATS on My Super Sweet Sixteen.
I have an idea for a new show MTV! Why don't you create a new show called 'Let's drop these super sweet sixteen years olds in low income housing in a minority dominated residential area and force them to live on $20 a week whilst working a part-time job and going to a underfunded public school where they fix the test scores by lowering the standards and kicking out low performing students, all so that its students have little of no chance of going to college but probably enough of a chance to end up working at a burger joint for 6.50 an hour for the next 5 years'. Or as I like to call it, The Real, Real World.
These reasons should suffice but I'm sure that if I opened up any random number of pop-culture blogs right now, there would be plenty more complaints!
Let me turn my attention back to the performance that started my whole critique of MTV. I'd like to take all of the VMAs producers to task for allowing Ms. Britney Spears to embarrass herself like that in front of a worldwide audience! I've never been a fan of Ms. Spears or her music. But even I can invoke empathy for someone who is clearly on a self-destructive path with no one telling her the whole truth and nothing but.
I thought she looked distracted or even dazed. She didn't dance, just walked around and let her backup dancers do all the work. She didn't even bother to half lip-sync. She's had better performances, even at earlier incarnations of the same awards show.
But none of the producers thought it wise to pull the plug on what they KNEW was going to be a bad performance. They probably kept her on just so that her public crucifying would bring in more ratings!
I saw the photos online of her out partying every night leading up to the awards show. The producers and for that matter, Britney and her handlers should have made sure she was REHEARSING NOT PARTYING!! I'm taking P. Diddy and all her other VMA cohorts to task on this as well! If you know the girl, if you even give a fuck about her as a human being, shouldn't you have acted like a gentleman and told her to lay off the booze? Most of these people are parents! What do you do when your kids decide to act up? You bar/restrict them from participating in the activities that they love best. For Diddy's kids it's taking away the Playstation. For Britney, its' the damn VMAs!!!
Some Dr.Phil-sounding advice: Don't be an enabler if you can avoid it!
MTV knows that she is going through a vicious custody battle right now. They're adding fuel to the fire by allowing her to do what she did last night. Unforgiveable.
To Ms. Spears, learn from this awful performance! You need to take an extended break. Take care of your yourself, your kids and forget about the music biz for awhile because it clearly is working against you. Stage another comeback when you are clearly sober and in your right mind.
MTV, the ball is in your court! You can improve your network and bring back in an older audience (above 19!) who are just as sick of VH1 as they are of you right now! Might I make a few suggestions?
1. Scrap the concept for next years VMAs. Toss it, run it over, whatever it takes!
2. Fire or demote whoever has been producing the shows since 2000 because they've been getting steadily worse since then.
3. Bring in a good comedian to host. Sarah Silverman has her moments but she's kinda like the comedic Ann Coulter. She doesn't really believe that shit, she just wants to get a rise out of you.
4. Change your programming to play at least some videos so that you can give out some decent sounding awards next year.
5. Retire pop-punk. Its the new rap/metal
6. For the next year, no more videos by Beyonce, Avril, Ashanti, Cassie, whoever-the-hell- dominates your female pop artist list. Enough is enough.
7. Cancel most of your shows. CANCEL THEM!!! NO ifs, ands or buts about it!
8. If you are going to have any shows, THEY MUST BE ABOUT MUSIC NOT ABOUT HAVING MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND FOR THE AUDIENCE TO HEAR OVER RUDE PHILOSOPHIZING from idiots whose parents should be ashamed to have children that dumb!!!!
9. Expand your News department! That is the one area that I recall as having some substance and trying to connect with your younger audience, to make them aware of what's going on in the world outside of their immediate attention spans. Kudos to Suchin Pak! Bring Tabitha Soren & Serena Altschul out of retirement and pay them a boatload of cash she deserves to do the reporting you know they can do! Is Kurt Loder still there? Pay him more. The same goes for John Norris, a real trooper in my opinion to have stayed with your retarded asses for this long!
10. Tell Viacom, the big media conglomerate that owns your sorry asses, to BACK OFF! Leave the shareholder nonsense to them. Worry about making MTV what it once was, classy, rollicking and informative, and what it can be again (should it make the choice to jump off the bandwagon and make MTV about the Music (videos) once again)!
Wishing you good luck in your future endeavors,
Me
