MTV or Music Television hit India some 7-8 years back along with Channel V. I still remember how excited we were to see music videos of Madonna, MJ, Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, etc. It really used to symbolise what it is named, i.e. music.
Well what does MTV now stand for, I don’t know, but it definitely is not music. If somebody says it is so, all I have to say is show me some music on the channel. Switch on the channel any time of the day and all that greets you is a program which is supposed to be funny (mind you not funny, but supposed to be).
Let me elaborate, for starters, it shows very few (if at all) English tracks nowadays. The reason, it is trying to identify itself with India. And how are they doing it, by airing as many Hindi programs as possible.
There are so many film based programs (I mean ’Hindi’ film based) that one wonders whether it is a music channel or a movie channel. Then when they play the latest songs, they show trailers of the movie along with the song and not the actual song video.
Then there are a whole lot of useless programs on air. I don’t know who is the creator of all these ideas, but god save him when I see him in person. I just hate programs like Loveline, Bakra, etc. There are channels which air entertainment programs (Zee, Sony) or game shows (Star Plus), etc. Music Television is supposed to play music and not show cartoons and games.
And the real pain in you-know-where are the know-all (but dumbest of all dumb) VJs. Except for maybe Cyrus’ wisecracks at times, the rest are a bunch of idiots.
Then comes the interview with celebs. Oh my gosh, if something is most horrible to watch on MTV it is this. There are good relevant intelligent questions, which you can ask a celeb. Well MTV seems to find exactly the opposite.
The frequent reference to sex and the general undertone in every program and conversation makes the channel not watchable for kids and also along with elders.
Then there is the problem of retelecasting shows again and again. But that is a problem with many other channels on air.
Still there are some programs I like which are Select, Classic, etc. And the programs I hate are Loveline, Bakra, Grind, etc. In fact most of their shows at night are pathetic.
I feel Channel V is a better music channel than MTV (please please all you members note the usage of the word ’better’). Though it has most of the drawbacks of MTV but to a very lesser extent and they play music more often. And when I want to listen to music, I want my music channel to play music.