I Want My MTV, Hold the Music
A few months ago, my colleague Karen Brennan blogged about the Sci-Fi Channel’s name change to SyFy and removal of its Saturn logo. As Karen explained, part of the reason Sci-Fi/SyFy company heads wanted to change the name was to update the brand to appeal to a wider audience.
Now MTV is “changing” its logo as well. To what, you ask? MTV. MTV? MTV.
MTV isn’t changing the hefty, 3-D “M” or the graffiti-esque “TV.” MTV is simply doing away with the tagline “Music Television.”
Rolling Stone is calling it “a move that signifies the end of an era”, while the LA Times reports that “[f]or its part, MTV says viewers had moved beyond what the old logo said. ‘The people who watch it today, they don't refer to MTV as music television.’”
Rather than a move to expand its audience, however, MTV’s logo change comes across as a bit of coming clean – I was five when MTV debuted and spent most of my single digits pestering my parents so that they would install cable so I could watch it, and I don’t ever recall calling MTV “music television.” The on-line petition to convince MTV to change its name supports my theory, at least in part.
And besides, as my post last week indicated, we all know what MTV is really known for now.
MTV hasn't had music on the channel in a decade, so it's about time they finally acknowledge it.
Perhaps they could use a new tagline: "Putting the M in Reality Television."