I’ve been a fan of the music channels since I was young, I watched The Box alot on my analogue service in North London (Cable London) then around early 97 I got bored of it and only watched occasionally. When I saw the video for Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston’s duet When You Believe (which has a key change) on ITV’s SMTV Live, I’ve decided to watch both The Box (again) and MTV endlessly to see When You Believe getting played all over again. But the video airplay for the song dried up for the song after Christmas 1998. I watched The Box one Saturday morning and the playlist had been culled including all of the long standing videos. Then in the summer of 1999 MTV got a new look followed by The Box in late 1999.
Since then music channel have been suck in the hut. They show a lot of countdowns and the thinner playlist, making harder for new artists to get video airplay on the channels.
With YouTube available, the video exclusives on these channels have dried up, the only chance of making linear music video channels work again if a pay linear (a The Box like jukebox) and streaming music video channel is launched but it is unlikely.
The MTV channels do seem overly reliant on the top 40 but I find The Box is actually still quite good for new music.
Can MTV even be called "Music" Television anymore?
<t>14 y/o gamer and artist with autism. (She/Her)</t>
The only music channel that I watch regularly is MTV Live HD. Mainly because of the lack of adverts, lack of onscreen clutter and the superior picture quality. Admittedly they do tend to repeat some of the live programming rather frequently but the hours where they're just showing back to back videos are good.
MTV itself ceased to be a music channel years ago. It was probably at its best around 1998-2000 when the schedule was filled with presenter led programming like Select, Hitlist UK, Euro Top 20, etc..
These days it's just wall-to-wall Catfish and Teen Mom. Although I have been getting into the former again of late.
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Do have to wonder now that C4 fully own BOX what the advantage is of keeping 4Music as 4Music when three quarters of the schedule isn't. The brand could easily be moved over to one of the BOX channels if they wish to keep it, then rebrand 4Music as what it is, possibly E4 Gold.
@Brekkietweets
I wonder if C4 will sell any of The Box music channels (bar 4Music). The music channels doesn't fit in with C4's strategy. AATW could snatch of these channels from C4.
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Considering they've increase their holdings in it to 100% it seems unlikely. And TBH from the consultation that is now out they may be encouraged to look for ventures to raise more money rather than stay away from them moving forward.
Notice though 4Music has now seemingly dropped the red button channels on Freeview, and the Box Plus app seems to have vanished too. Presumably the link with Bauer brands Kiss, Magic and Kerrang will ultimately come to an end given Bauer pulling out of the network.
@Brekkietweets
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I haven't watched a music channel in years. The last one I briefly caught was one of the NOW channels with cropped and stretched poor quality copies of videos, not helped by the over compressed sub SD quality on Freeview.
I still watch music videos, but on YouTube where I can choose which ones to watch.
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Yes, that's about the only time I watch them too but in recent years it's asking Alexa for a Christmas playlist instead.
@Brekkietweets
