Monday, November 19, 2007
MTVLX
Well, we were going to write something about the new Girls Aloud album today, but our copy has so far resolutely refused to drop through our letterbox. We are going to assume an innocent explanation for the delay for now, but if we here our postman walking down the street whistling future-pop electro anthems of incomparable genius then, frankly, there’s going to be hell to pay.
Instead, we shall turn our attentions towards the news that MTV has just launched it’s sixtieth - 60! - channel. Admittedly at least half of the sixty are time shifted “Plus One” channels, but even so this is still quite an impressive feat. It does, after all, take a certain amount of dedication and persistence to have that much airtime at your disposal and yet still use it for nothing more interesting than repeating the same episode of My Super Sweet Sixteen over and over again. The latest channel to join the family is MTV Arabic, part of MTV’s efforts to celebrate the world’s cultural diversity and local quirks by showing the same Hogan knows Best and Pimp My Ride style rubbish that the rest of the world sees, only with subtitles. But if that’s channel sixty, what are the other stations that MTV is pumping out to an increasingly disinterested world? Let’s have a look, shall we?
Instead, we shall turn our attentions towards the news that MTV has just launched it’s sixtieth - 60! - channel. Admittedly at least half of the sixty are time shifted “Plus One” channels, but even so this is still quite an impressive feat. It does, after all, take a certain amount of dedication and persistence to have that much airtime at your disposal and yet still use it for nothing more interesting than repeating the same episode of My Super Sweet Sixteen over and over again. The latest channel to join the family is MTV Arabic, part of MTV’s efforts to celebrate the world’s cultural diversity and local quirks by showing the same Hogan knows Best and Pimp My Ride style rubbish that the rest of the world sees, only with subtitles. But if that’s channel sixty, what are the other stations that MTV is pumping out to an increasingly disinterested world? Let’s have a look, shall we?
- Erm, TV? - Interactive channel in which a parade of androgynous types appear on screen and viewers are invited to text in and guess whether they’re a real woman or just a convincing transvestite.
- MTV+10 - Time shifted channel allowing those who were out doing stuff this time ten years ago a chance to catch the MTV shows they missed. Tonight, it’s 1997 and the powers that be still seem to find Tim Kash strangely employable.
- TMV - Special dyslexic version of the main channel.
- MTV Antarctica - Broadcasting a special mix of programs designed to appeal to an audience made up largely of penguins. Pingu features more heavily here than in other MTV demographics. Was original considered to be a really cool channel but support seems to be melting away, which is only to be expected in the current climate.
- DMTV - Edits down music videos to only show the participants shoes. According to the station’s charter they don’t have to be Doc Martins, but in practice this is all they’ve shown.
- NTV - Rubbish section of Noel’s House Party in which viewers were asked to suspend their disbelief and believe that a member of the public genuinely did not expect to be suddenly appearing on TV, having a chat with Noel Edmonds, despite the fact their TV had a camera on the top of it, there was a massive outside broadcast truck outside there house and that they’d been asked to sign a release form just thirty minutes before the broadcast began.
- MTV Germany - Dedicated to highlighting the best of German pop. And then broadcasts the same old American stuff for the remaining 23 hours, 55 minutes of the day.
- Gee! MTV - Nostalgia channel dealing entirely with the music scene of the fifties. Not to be confused with Gee-Gee MTV which only broadcasts jockey’s bemoaning the lack of horse racing related themes in modern music videos.
- Elm TV - Misguided attempt to rebrand Robert Englund, the actor behind Freddy Krueger, as a VJ. This aim was hampered mainly by Robert’s insistence on playing Dokken’s Dream Warriors, the theme tune to Nightmare on Elm Street 3, ever twenty minutes, before spending the next ten minutes declaring it to be the greatest song ever written before going on to explain in unnecessary detail why he feels this to be the case, which, at it’s most basic, boils down to the fact he’s in the video. This station replaced the old mtV station which Robert also fronted. And is also the geekiest joke we’ve ever written.
- Hem TV - Catering for an older, more mature, female audience, this alternates hop hop videos with advice on sewing. Most famous for it’s “From bitch to stitch” tagline.
- MTV Robbie - A station dedicated to Robbie Williams, filling its hours with Robbie news, Robbie videos, Robbie interviews and people just chatting about what they imagine Robbie might be doing right now. This station currently only broadcasts inside Robbie’s head.
- MTV Base - Essentially the same as normal MTV, only with more swearing and knob gags.
- MTVXXX - All nude version of the main channel. Recently taken off the air after viewers proved to be less keen on seeing Tim Westwood hosting Pimp My Ride without even a hint of bling than focus groups had originally indicated.
- MT Me - It’s output consists entirely of viewer-generated content, and even then only content that you, specifically you, generate. Subscription involves a special team of MTV engineers coming round to your house and fitting a high tech facilitator portal to your television, allowing you to take part in this new revolution in television. Suspicions that all they do is come round and fit a giant mirror to your TV are entirely correct.
- MTV Music - Experimental channel which broadcasts nothing but music videos all day long. Bosses don’t expect this format to catch on.
