There’s no denying that MTV was once a culturally relevant part of the music industry, but the question now is: Does it still hold any relevance? Lets examine the facts and see…

MTV’s first telecast to a few thousand viewers in New Jersey happened 8/1/1981. The first video they ever played was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles.  Their slogan at this time was “You’ll never look at music the same way again”.

In 1981 MTV had 2.1 million subscribers, 1 channel and showed music videos 24 hours a day. Come 2011, MTV has 100.6 million subscribers, 64 channels and shows music videos from 3am to 9am, only 6 hours.

On 12/7/1987 MTV aired its first non-musical series called Remote Control. These days MTV’s Jersey Shore has 10.1 million average viewer s and pays the characters $100 000 per episode. However, credit where credit is due: despite Rebecca Black’s “Friday” racking up over 142 million views on YouTube.com MTV has not played it once.

So, does MTV still hold any relevance in the music industry? No. But at least they know it. MTV have realised they can no longer realistically call themselves Music Television; in 2010 they removed the phrase from their logo so it just reads MTV.Â