Am I The Only One Watching MTV Classic?
The frailty of nostalgia, background noise, and the all-consuming essence of fate.
On a Saturday night, about a month ago, I was floored by the moving image on my bedroom television. There he was: Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford, throttling the microphone for an incomprehensibly tame crowd at the 2001 Rock in Rio Festival. There I was: mystified.
Do not mistake shock for disappointment; my commitment to late-night headbanging is indomitable.
It’s just…
Saturday night, Eastern Timezone, channel 218 (check local listings), Lord forbid, has Rob Halford passed away?1 Did the “powers that be” load the wrong video? Is it Friday? (When Metal Mayhem fries your speakers from 9pm to 2am.)
Nope.
After seven years of a seemingly catatonic existence, MTV Classic made a programming change.
“Now we grieve cause now is gone. Things were good when we were young.”
-The Von Bondies (written by Jason Stollsteimer)
MTV Classic launched in 2016 as a rebrand of the similarly overlooked Viacom (currently Paramount Global) property: VH1 Classic. Since the millennium’s dawn, VH1 Classic forged a nostalgic refuge for lovers of music and televisual stimulation. As flagship MTV and VH1 mutated into menageries of commodity fetishism (Pimp My Ride, MTV Cribs), nubile teens looking for love (Room Raiders, neXt), and nubile teens fighting over lovers (Laguna Beach), VH1 Classic kept “Music First™.”
Despite a micro-cult-following for Behind The Music, Pop-Up Video (the video equivalent of Snapple Real Facts), and original talk program That Metal Show, Viacom christened MTV’s 35th Anniversary by renaming “Classic” in the Big M’s honor. The new name brought a new schedule (R.I.P. TMS) showcasing MTV’s esteemed scripted and reality TV repertoire (with videos filling graveyard timeslots).
As MTV Classic burrowed into the outer-reaches of cable lineups, wistful optimism faded, and neither critics, nor audiences were satisfied.
“Remembering MTV for its shows would be like commemorating Prince for his acting. I’ll trade the entire run of Laguna Beach or The Hills for one Adam and the Ants video, and so would you.”
- Rob Sheffield, "What MTV Classic Needs to Do to Survive.” Rolling Stone Read more
Within 5 months, ratings plummeted 35%; making Classic the least watched channel on American television. According to Nielsen, an average of 31,000 viewers tuned-in each night (the average attendance of a Mets home game).
Viacom responded by purging the station of every program; except what MTV gradually divorced2 itself from over three decades: music videos.
Oldheads, like myself, relished the change (something I seldom do), yet oldheads who have yet to liberate themselves from cable television are a sparse, dwindling, flock.
In 2017, MTV Classic closed the year averaging 16,000 nightly viewers.
In 2018, the audience dropped to 10,000 viewers (the average attendance of an Oakland A’s game).
The decline continued until MTV Classic stopped reporting its ratings with Nielsen in 2020.
The year MTV Classic became my most watched network.
In defiance of every sleep doctor and TikTok wellness shaman, I enjoy blue-light-rich television before bed (figuratively, since I am already in bed). By 2020, I was weary from years of The King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, and George Lopez (the three kings of “comfort food” comedy). Instead of vanquishing restlessness and boredom by turning off the TV, I continued my eternal odyssey of combating sleep until my consciousness caved. One night, my clammy thumb whipped the “Channel +” button until my red-veined eyes landed on David Byrne (that protean genius) convulsing to the bridge of “Once In A Lifetime.”
I was hooked.
MTV Classic, in its current form, is akin (perhaps an Ancestry.com cousin) to MTV and VH1 of the 1980s. Videos air in threes, followed by four minutes of commercials for credit lenders, pet insurance, and extremely niche apps that might be installed on my phone (I’m looking at you, Blossom). Each video is lumped into four to six hour blocks based on genre or decade; unless you are watching the free-for-all: MTV Classic Videos, which harmonizes early ‘80s concert footage with the “bling-bling” era when custom ringtones precariously nurtured your self-esteem.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, MTV Classic provided more than a supplementary (albeit archaic) medium to enjoy music with paratextual aid. Sure, I could have enriched my days listening to Spotify, watching music videos (or “visualizers”) on YouTube, or dare I admit publicly: tuning into terrestrial radio. However, the operational nature of MTV Classic provided two things forsaken by the pandemic: an unyielding routine, and a reason to trust fate.
Each program block airs at its same time, on the same day, of every week. Tuesday night: Yo! Hip-Hop Mix, Thursday and Saturday mornings: Total Request Playlist, Sunday night: Rock Block. Once you’ve watched MTV Classic for two hours, thanks to most videos being three to four minutes long, you realize commercial breaks end at the same time every hour3 (go ahead, tune-in at 16, 34, and 50 minutes after any hour from 8am to 2am).
While the genre or decade is etched in cable schedules as MTV Classic’s dogma, what is left to chance: which videos will play. There are no episodes of any MTV Classic program; just randomized sequences of videos airing between program-indicating bumpers.
This is why MTV Classic feels detached from reality or mere logic. Nobody is watching; yet somewhere inside 1515 Broadway, a nameless figure (or intern) is ingesting and programming videos to broadcast day-in-and-day out. Who is this person?
Why are they granted deific reign over the content I have consumed alarming amounts of in the past four years?
MTV Classic began engrossing my psyche when it became the jukebox scoring my pandemic home life. Building a pool table: “turn on that MTV Classic.” Making breakfast: tune in and wash your hands. Six hours of video editing: 90s Nation has your back(ground noise).
But it is more than background noise. Like many pursuits fueled by pining, an afternoon with MTV Classic allows one to rest safely on the breast of nostalgia for minutes at a time. If I did not like the song, I tuned it out and focused on the foreground task. If it was the ultra-rare airing of “Set It Off” (the Juvenile song), furniture was indeed broken.
Again, I could have streamed music just as every sensible human younger than 40 living in a first-world country does. But in our instant gratification society, there is a distinct rapture of dopamine that comes from tuning into House of Pop, foolishly begging for a particular song to play, and out of the thousands of videos that could air in 1 of the 72 slots across six hours, fate unravels gracefully in your favor.
As the world seemed to pinball between peril and anguish, whether it was pure coincidence, or divine intervention telepathically connecting my wishes to the phantom keeper of MTV’s video archive, nothing restored my faith in humanity like witnessing a personal request appear on television for the world to see.
Although I am a self-proclaimed control-freak, leaving something purely to chance, and having it pay off, even when it is something so trivial as a song selection, is validation at its purest.
Pathetic, I know.
To the dear intern toiling at a computer deep in the annals of MTV’s headquarters: thank you.
Of course I’ll miss the 11 o’clock sharp4 airing of “Achy Breaky Heart”; but I am stoked for double the Metal Mayhem.
Admittedly, I don’t watch MTV Classic as often as I did in the “pandemic era.” I still jam in my living room whenever possible. (How else can a man stay sane?)
An even stranger development is how I grew out of my oldhead ways. For a number of years, I was just like those faceless people grousing in comment sections about how: “new music is trash!” and “where’s the ART?” A lot of music is trash. A lot of music is great. “Trash artists” have good songs, and vice-versa. These are tangents for another time.
Now is a good time to mention that MTV Classic is not the only Viacom property still committed to music videos. MTVU (marketed to students for some reason), MTV LIVE (the only one in HD), MTV Tres (en español), and NickMusic, each play videos from Top-40 and rising artists. These channels also air MTV PUSH, a monthly series profiling bubbling artists before they go mainstream (Tate McRae and Jack Harlow are two PUSH alumni bogarting Pop Radio as I type.) BETJams and BETSoul air a smooth hybrid of Rap and R&B with many “throwbacks” in between; they also air hour-long “Happy Birthday” playlists (April 9th’s celebration is for Lil Nas X).
One day, MTV Classic and its sister stations will vanish like the foregone years music video and all nostalgic content represent; or move to Pluto TV.
For now, may fate allow this reformed oldhead to enjoy it while he can, when he can.
Even if he is the only one watching.
“You can tell my eyes to watch out for my mind; it might be walking out on me today.”
-Billy Ray Cyrus (written by Don Von Tress)
MTV Classic only overrides scheduled programing for video blocks dedicated to a musician who passed away earlier that day.
Following the quiet disappearance of Fresh Out Playlist in late 2023, there are currently no music videos airing on flagship MTV.
Unless Puff Daddy & Mase’s “Been Around The World” or GNR’s “November Rain” threw the schedule into a ten minute delay.
A little over six months ago, MTV Classic began airing “Achy Breaky Heart” at 11:00pm ET on (what felt like) every Saturday. The other egregious instance of a video playing on a routine schedule was: “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”, and its two-year streak of airing EVERY Tuesday Night at approx. 10:26pm. I do miss that shredding gorilla.
"Nobody is watching; yet somewhere inside 1515 Broadway, a nameless figure (or intern) is ingesting and programming videos to broadcast day-in-and-day out. Who is this person?" Welcome to college radio! Great article.
I wound up here because I also wondered if I’m the only person watching MTV Classic. I’ve considered if there would be any market for a batch of bumper stickers like “I’d rather be watching HOUSE OF POP on MTV CLASSIC” etc. I also previously trying to look on LinkedIn for anyone whose job title has MTV CLASSIC but no dice. Must just say they work for Viacom or whatever.