The death of music TV
RIP childhood
An era is ending: this week, Channel 4 — a UK broadcaster — pulled the plug on five iconic music channels.
Kerrang! TV, The Box, Kiss, 4Music, and Magic no longer exist.
Expected? Yeah, pretty much. But sad? Yup yup yup. Things done changed. So let’s chat about how and discuss music television.
It was MTV back in the 80s that invented modern music channels. Yeah, beforehand there were shows that played live performances or aired some tracks, but MTV created the format of a channel playing back-to-back music videos all day, every day.
But here’s the thing: I was neither alive nor aware of that.
By the time I was conscious of music television, MTV had transitioned away from the format into predominately showing reality series. In my time (god I sound like an old man), it was an entirely different set of stations that held the music mantle. And the one that stuck with me the most? The now defunct Kerrang! TV.
This alternative rock channel introduced me to all kinds of music, from the Beastie Boys to System of a Down. Yet there was an issue. Just like our old mate Rishi, I didn’t have Sky or any other premium cable channel. This meant that watching channels like Kerrang! was relegated to whenever I went around to friends’ houses who were lucky enough to have a subscription. Those times were glorious, but too sparse for my liking.
Until Freeview.
Before the launch of digital TV, there were only five channels in the UK. Afterwards? Many. Lots and lots. All for free.
I could spend multiple newsletters considering the impact this had on me (shout out BBC4), but the thing that captivated me most about all the extra channels was the fact music television was suddenly available.
And goddamn I loved it. Yeah, it was mainly mainstream pop stations, but that didn’t stop me from spending hour after hour absorbing videos. From ‘Can’t Stop’ and ‘Gay Bar,’ to ‘Dilemma’ and ‘Get Busy,’ there are hundreds of tracks from that era lodged permanently in my brain.
Of course there was an element of music discovery here — Channel U in particular showed me a whole new world — but, looking back, the real joy came from this sense of engaging in a shared culture.
We all had these channels. We could all watch them. And we did.
The videos were discussed, dissected. My music taste was developed in some sense by watching things I didn’t like, songs I found irritating or trite. Of course there was plenty I loved, but that’s not where the fun or connection was. Hating something was both a bonding experience and personality-forming.
It’s this shared culture that makes me sad about the passing of music channels, but it’s hard to be surprised about the way things have gone. Nowadays, what reason is there really to watch them? YouTube is a far more efficient way of getting music videos into your brain.
This, I guess, is the nature of change. We no longer have to engage with music we don’t want to. There are few tastemakers serving us art; instead our listening is driven by algorithms spewing us back songs that sound like things we already love. I’m not saying this state of affairs is better or worse, it’s just different. It’s a way of experiencing music I didn’t grow up with and therefore don’t hold dear.
Something has been lost with the death of music television, but much has also been gained by the move to streaming. The idea of being able to watch every music video in existence would’ve been thrilling at 13.
Yet, YouTube keeps you in a bubble, isolated in a personal musical world. You can share a single track with someone, but you don’t share a consistent experience with everyone. Outside of seismic moments and drops, that communal entertainment world doesn’t really exist.
Times change. And, to be honest, in a decade or two, we’ll be seeing thinkpieces declaring how sad it is that YouTube is unrecognisable. It’s simply the way.
The moral of the story? Appreciate what you have now, because it’ll never be this way again.