Christina Warren of Mashable on MTV’s 30th Anniversary:

“At a macro level, new technology has fundamentally changed how people experience music,” [Shannon] Connolly [VP of digital music strategy at MTV Networks] said. Before the rise of YouTube and near-instant access to everything, “people waited around to watch a video on television” or used the TV as a way to “discover new music and artists.” That was true as recently as five or seven years ago, but it isn’t true anymore.

Maybe my sense of time is gone, but as recent at 5 years ago? Was MTV even showing videos, except late night, 5 years ago? I think music videos went the way of the Dodo when downloading music, both legally and illegally, became the norm.

I am sure that people still watch music videos on YouTube¹, but I think MTV assisted in the irrevlance by switching their programming from 90% music videos to 90% stupid original content.

1. I have even heard that a lot of people looking to listen to a song hit YouTube first these days [↩]