Originally Posted by Urban Hatemonger

I should point out that MTV are just the tip of the iceberg here.

Back in the mid - late 80s and with satellite and cable TV still in it's infancy in the UK which was only really available to either tech geeks , rich people or people with a big enough garden to fit a 10 foot satellite dish, the thought of a television station that played music for 24 hours was just mindblowing. Especially for someone like me who had grown up with only 3/4 terrestrial channels.

A friend of mine at school named Paul who was into the same sort of music as me had a Dad who was a bit of a tech geek and actually owned a satellite dish , and every few months he'd give me a video of stuff he'd recorded from it. It was great , in depth interviews with my favourite bands , music videos by bands I liked who I didn't even know made music videos , the occasional recorded gig , special programs recorded at festivals. I thought it was the dogs bollocks and was really envious that he had access to all that stuff.

A few years later and when Rupert Murdoch & Alan Sugar made satellite TV accessible & affordable to plebs like me I was really excited about getting this stuff for myself. So when I finally wrestled the TV remote from the rest of the family I put on MTV , sat back on the sofa , took it all in and came to a sudden realisation....

This is shit

It should have been a clue that the 3 hour tapes of stuff Paul gave me was recorded over several months. Aside from the occasional show , usually tucked away in the small hours of the morning MTV was absolute crap. Every program seemed to follow the same pattern.....

shitty grunge video
Adverts
shitty 'Alternative' video
Adverts
shitty R&B video
Inane drivel from some presenter
Adverts
More inane drivel from some presenter
Another shitty R&B video
Adverts
shitty dance video
Adverts
shitty hip hop video
Adverts
Even more inane drivel from some presenter.

So I stopped watching.

That was about 16/17 years ago , now things are even worse.
MTV doesn't really count anymore because they're too obsessed making shitty reality shows , and thats about it really. But that's OK because there are fucking hundreds of other shit TV stations to replace it.
It seems now whenever i scroll my remote through the 500 music channels that are there I get this...

5 stations showing the same 10 shitty Hip Hop tunes
5 stations showing the same 10 shitty R&B tunes
5 stations showing the same 10 shitty Nu Metal tunes
5 stations showing the same 10 shitty 80s stadium rock tunes
5 stations showing the same 10 shitty Dance tunes
5 stations showing the same 10 shitty songs that people can call in and vote for.

In fact i have noticed that there seems to be a music station for everybody but one important demographic has been missed out , I don't quite know how this one was overlooked because to me it seems pretty obvious and the lack of it seems to baffle me.....

I know it's a long shot but how about a music station dedicated to PEOPLE WHO LIKE MUSIC.

You know , like a 24 hour station where you can have artist profiles , live gigs , exclusive interviews , documentaries , biographies. Not only populated by big rich & famous stars but by bands who actually made a difference or had something to say. A station for open minded people where you can find any genre you like. A music station where you can actually learn something instead of watching a stream of women shaking their asses in the camera over some monotonous beat for 10 videos in a row.

It'll never ever happen. In the last year I have only watched 3 things to do with music on TV. A Hawkwind documentary , A David Bowie biography and a Thin Lizzy concert from 1978.

None of these were on a specialist music channel.

Says it all really.