MTV sucks? This is news?

Trib guest blogger Mark Caro actually watched MTV's Live 8 coverage and almost threw a shoe at the television.

Could MTV show any more contempt for the music that originally gave the network its reason to exist?

I don't know where Mr. Caro has been the last fifteen years, but MTV has long abandoned being about music. MTV is mostly about marketing to preteens, tweens, teens, and college students who've yet to be angry at the world. The network hit a few quick high points over the years like Beavis & Butthead, Ren & Stimpy, Buzzkill, The State, and its own funky take on Spider-Man, but it's relied too much on its extended cast of Bunim-Murray D-list whores and other "reality-based" projects. Even the network's one "break out hit" The Osbournes fell flat on its face when viewers quickly grew tired of Ozzy's drug-addled clan.

When one charts the rise and fall of MTV's hits, one can't help but notice that their lives are as short as the apparent attention span of its average viewer. The only constant on MTV for a long while has been The Real World, Road Rules, and any combination of the two. Veronica has seen more screen time on MTV in the last five years than any given musician. (It's still a shame to watch The Real World and recall that the preformulated hormone-fest started as an earnest effort to understand racial and sexual politics.)