Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2011 October 8

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October 8

What happened to MTV?

What happened to Music Television? I've read the article and they catalogue the progression from music to less to even less and continuing to what we have now, which is basically no music at all, but it's never said: Why? I guess it must be more lucrative in their estimation right? But I don't understand why that would be either. Everyone watched MTV. When we came home from school we turned on MTV. Nothing else. Hours and hours of it. What a built in and loyal audience it inspired, with only VH1 as competition. Now it has all programming (and the same for VH1); people like some and if they don't like it they turn the channel. Sure, its targeted to a certain age group and type but it's still programming competing with all other programming. So I ask again: Why?--108.54.26.7 (talk) 01:34, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

MTV2 plays videos. You have to have a package more expensive than standard to get the channel though.μηδείς (talk) 03:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Youtube plays music videos. Any one you'd care to watch. --Jayron32 03:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Of low quality for the large part, and not passively so far as I know. μηδείς (talk) 04:28, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Many artists have their own channels and many labels have them as well. I don't know what the requirements are but you can build playlists as well or play other people's playlists. Not as passive as turning on a TV station but it's part way there. Dismas|^(talk) 04:39, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

What seems to me to have happened is that, with the growth of availability of satellite channels, MTV have responded by providing segmented channels. By that I mean they have split off different channels for different audience segments. I don't have satellite TV myself, but the social club I use does, and yesterday on their EPG there were 8 - 10 different MTVs listed. So maybe the answer is you're watching the wrong MTV! --TammyMoet (talk) 12:06, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the answers but respectfully, you're responding to a different issue than the one I raised. Let me clarify. I am intimately aware of where to find videos and am not looking for any advice in that regard. I watched Video Killed the Radio Star at midnight on August 1, 1981 and MTV was a big part of our lives thereafter--everyone I knew, through high school and through college. We would gather to watch 120 Minutes every Sunday in my dorm in college. I am not asking about where to find videos, I am asking about the puzzling to me business decision that starting taking place I guess around 1995 and progressed inexorably through to what we have now. I think many of you are too young to truly understand how influential MTV was and how much videos mattered; I don't understand the economics of what occurred. As a side note, the videos of today, but for the major players, are crappy afterthoughts. In 1988, to pick a random year, any random artist needed to make a real video, or try, not just slap together some footage of them singing. As MTV stopped playing videos, videos came to matter far less and the production value of them declined precipitously on average, so that you no longer get these crazy quirky videos from smaller artists. I bet the younger of you are unaware of the numerous famous videos that gained their fame far more because of the video itself than the music. Your parents all remember Godley & Creme's "Cry". That won't happen today to the same extent. This really is a side note; just something I was thinking about that resulted from the moribund state of the video industry today.--108.54.26.7 (talk) 14:46, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it if you could tell me how my answer given immediately above yours is "responding to a different issue than the one I raised"! I think it's entirely appropriate. The analogy I would draw is with the BBC: it now has a number of different TV channels, each catering for different audiences (BBC3, for example, is a youth oriented channel). Back in the day, however, there was just BBC1 and BBC2 (and I'm old enough to remember BBC2's first broadcast) and the situation you describe appertained then (we all sat round the set and watched...). --TammyMoet (talk) 15:33, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

This article says it's because videos are available from other, more convenient sources, while this one also suggests that record companies came to believe the cost of producing them (e.g. "a reported US$7 million" for "Scream") was "an expensive extravagance with limited use". Clarityfiend (talk) 19:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

This was covered a long time ago (probably around 1990). Advertising is based on television ratings. The television ratings were based on the concept of 30-minute long television programs, not 3-minute long songs. So, MTV suffered in advertising because it was not a normal television channel. It did break up the programming into 30-minute long themed segments, but it was discovered that original programming scored higher ratings. So, they went after ratings to get advertising. Over time, it has turned out that it is far more profitable to put idiots on camera than it is to try and guess what song teens want to listen to next. -- kainaw™ 17:45, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Basic economic principles are involved; it's a classic case of an innovator in a field being priced out by cheaper competitors. Originally MTV was the only channel showing music videos. But as time went by, with the rise of digital video, it became cheaper to start a TV channel, so there was a proliferation of channels showing music video - at the peak of popularity, dozens of channels, some segmented by musical genre, but many showing contemporary pop hits. This division of the market meant low ratings all round, and MTV with its large staff, high wages, prestigious awards ceremonies, parties, etc, has much higher overheads than some no-name channel operated by a single guy with a digital video link. Then MTV found that it got higher ratings for The Osbournes and similar shows, so the rest is history. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Tegan's (Janet Fielding's) criticisms of Doctor Who

I was looking for a recent picture of the vintage Doctor's second sexiest ever (no, third...) companion, and came across a blog entry which mentioned Fielding's being critical of Doctor Who, as if it were common knowledge. But it is not. What was her beef? μηδείς (talk) 03:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Make that fourth sexiest ever. How could I forget Leela? μηδείς (talk) 04:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Couldn't find anything detailed on this, but it seems she's been critical of the role of women in Doctor Who. --Antiquary (talk) 09:29, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

King of My Castle

If "King of My Castle" was released only in 1997, as the article says, how it could have been used in the 1995 Ghost in the Shell?--46.204.118.60 (talk) 11:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

That's not what I get from it. The line is "The song reached number one in the United Kingdom and the United States, and one of its two videos comprised footage from the 1995 anime film Ghost in the Shell." I read that to mean that two videos were made to this song, and one of those videos used footage from the 1995 film. Feel free to change the wording, though, if you find it unclear. ^Avic_ennasis @ 12:15, 10 Tishrei 5772 / 12:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

What does the NFL do in case all teams end with an all ties record?

I know the normal way of settling a tie is by intra-division, head to head, points scored, points given up etc. But what if all 32 teams in the NFL end up with no wins or losses, only ties? Four way coin tosses? Buggie111 (talk) 13:10, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Even in the extremely unlikely scenario you envision (there have been only seventeen tied games since the current overtime rule went into effect in 1974), it's even more unlikely that all the teams in a division or conference would have scored and surrendered the same numbers of points and scored the same number of touchdowns during the course of the season. Therefore, tiebreakers 7–11 in this list would still be used before flipping coins might become necessary. Deor (talk) 16:07, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

And in the even more unlikely situation that no poitns have been scored. Then it's a four way coin toss? Buggie111 (talk) 16:08, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Based on the aforementioned list, yes. When the previous 11 methods have been exhausted they resort to a coin toss. There's no indication that this rule would change even under the bizarre circumstances proposed. AJCham 17:33, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a tie in the NFL about once every five years, or every 1,250 games or so. The chance of even the first week's games all ending in ties is less than the chances of flipping a coin and having it land heads 164 times in a row. The chance of every single game ending in a tie is infinitesimal. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

If this scenario extended into the playoffs, the "wild card weekend" would extend indefinitely. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:26, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The only way this could realistically happen without a rules change would be if the players collaborated to do something like this on purpose, perhaps as some kind of protest. Googlemeister (talk) 14:32, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

And if they did, it would only last for one set of games. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:41, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Sport organizations membership Bangladesh

Besides FIFA and ICC cricket, what other sport organization is Bangladesh a member of? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.228.246 (talk) 20:04, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

There's also the Olympic Council of Asia, FIBA and the International Kabaddi Federation. AJCham 23:47, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The Commonwealth Games Federation too. --TammyMoet (talk) 07:14, 9 October 2011 (UTC)