How come Viacom gave up on MTV but kept BET going?

[Gizmo_Duck]

It’s funny to think about, i remember growing up it felt like BET was getting shows with less budgeting and less original programming. They used to show baby boy liek 5x’s a week. That and a few other hood classics. They had rap city, 106, college hill but that was the only handful of shows in the early 00’s. It felt like a lot of music tv budget went to MTV (and vh1 eventually) with all the award shows, reality shows, animation, and tons of other original drama’s and comedies.

Now it seems like MTV in general is just some dead placeholder network everyone completely forgot about. I think the only thing they show on it is reruns of catfish and ridiculousness. Not that anyone would know when new episodes were on. 16 and pregnant i remember being another one that they showed a lot idk if they still do.

Recently it feels like they’ve been trying to revive BET, they gave Tyler Perry a huge contract, it has a streaming network with other original content with BET+ and actually gets a bunch of new movies made specifically for it. It’s at least a step above Tubi at this point.

Why did they just completely throw mtv in the bushes? I feel like theres still potential to pander to millennial and gen x with new programming sort of how Max has done with warner bros content.

What do yall think?

 

[Rekkapryde]

music videos are dead on cable. youtube killed that. That was MTV's foundation.
I still think they should go all out on music related shyt since videos as the staple is done.

BET is black entertainment tv so you can have all kinds of shyt.

 

[RammerJammer]

BET dead too (at least the linear channel is) yeah they got the Tyler Perry shows but most of the schedule is Martin and Tyler Perry sitcom reruns.

No music video blocks (they do have BET Jams but that’s a digital cable channel), no news, no sports, etc.

Outside of live programming, all of these cable channels are dead channels as I like to call them. They don’t feel the need to build up these channels as long as their streaming services continue to thrive.

 

[King Sun]

music videos are dead on cable. youtube killed that. That was MTV's foundation.
I still think they should go all out on music related shyt since videos as the staple is done.

BET is black entertainment tv so you can have all kinds of shyt.

Funniest thing the shyt that could have saved them they put on MTV2 and kept the re runs going on MTV until people got totally turned off. MTV could have had the celeb podcast game on lock if they gave the bag to certain people

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

I still think they should go all out on music related shyt since videos as the staple is done.

Yeah, i think theres still a market for music related stuff, movies, docuseries, tv shows, reality, live concerts

Feels like netflix and amazon kind of got a bunch of music related docs now though

 

[Rekkapryde]

Yeah, i think theres still a market for music related stuff, movies, docuseries, tv shows, reality, live concerts

exactly, they should have pivoted to this

Feels like netflix and amazon kind of got a bunch of music related docs now though

yup

 

[Yaboysix]

BET is STILL Brought up Weekly... We keep that memory alive.

I don't think I EVER heard white Folks mention MTV

 

[feelosofer]

Neither channel is really doing much with it's airtime and because MTV does not preserve it's older media they can't even play it's classics from the 80s and 90s.

 

[Deltron]

Neither channel is really doing much with it's airtime and because MTV does not preserve it's older media they can't even play it's classics from the 80s and 90s.

shyt is sad, they even killed the MTV news website's archives.

 

[AquaCityBoy]

Cable in general is a dying platform aside from news and sports.

Most of the MTV branded originals like Teen Mom and The Challenge moved to Paramount+.

I also don't think it's a coincidence that Viacom, who also owns Pluto, has essentially turned MTV into a Pluto channel, with nothing but reruns of Ridiculousness, Catfish, and some old comedies from the mid-2000s.

 

[cartierhoe]

Because people love Baby Boy edited for PG?

 

[feelosofer]

Because people love Baby Boy edited for PG?

You motherfather. I'm gonna scrap you.

 

[King Harlem]

Viacom owns both channels, but the programming is handled by different people.

 

[Zero]

You motherfather. I'm gonna scrap you.

Go get the heat cuz, damn that brother!

 

[Thavoiceofthevoiceless]

music videos are dead on cable. youtube killed that. That was MTV's foundation.
I still think they should go all out on music related shyt since videos as the staple is done.

BET is black entertainment tv so you can have all kinds of shyt.

I think CMT (another Viacom property) still does do music videos, although even they consist of mainly reruns these days as well.