Since a few years we have three music stations on TV in Belgium, which is nice. I programmed them on consecutive numbers on my TV, so I can switch easily between them on a lazy moment. One of them is MTV of course, the other two are TMF and JimTV.
Recently however, MTV bought TMF, and for some strange reason decided to show less music on MTV! It even broadcasts less hours, during the day there are now cartoons on that frequency (while children are in school?!), and MTV starts at 18h. And if you then anticipate music, get ready for a surprise: a lot of it is reality shows, 'making of' shows and hidden camera shows. There are also rockumentaries, but if it's about a star you don't like, you have nothing to watch for an hour. It's often about the fancy house of an R&B star, with expensive cars in front of it. At midnight, the music starts, but usually I'm in bed by then. And at 6 in the morning, it's cartoons again.
To make it worse, we now get the MTV from the Netherlands. It doesn't have that much impact, but to see a Dutch person tell the news stories, alienates me even more.
Look, I agree that I still have two other music channels, but MTV is what I and many other people grew up with. It was the first music channel on TV, a channel that was only for us kids. It was part of our identity. Ray Cokes, Maiken Wexo and the Dutch VJ Simone (yes Dutch, but a nice one) were my heroes.
From now on I will pronounce it emptyvee, to make the distinction with the MTV I once knew.
