… or did it? 25 years ago today MTV launched into our consciousness with its first music video, The Buggles’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. It’s a landmark day in the music scene.

Or is it? Radio is just as strong as ever, if not more. Satellite radio has been born and is popular among many people of different demographics – after all, there’s something for everyone there. So did radio really die in the way everyone expected it to? Well, not really. And for grins, let’s take a look at MTV…

MTV has gone from all videos, all the time to videos maybe in the middle of the night and the rest of the time we’ll show edgy original programming and leave the music videos to VH1 or to MTV2. Oh wait, MTV2 is showing older MTV programming, and VH1 has jumped on the original programming bandwagon. And where are the music videos now? On VH1 classic. Sort of. Video didn’t kill the Radio Star. MTV killed the Video Star.

Bands are still making music videos, and they still show up on the ‘net here and there, but they’re not really played on the music video stations anymore. Dance clubs, mall stores, maybe a special niche countdown show here and there, will show videos but forget turning on MTV unless you’re up really early in the morning because that’s when that 24 hour music station will play videos – for about 3 hours in the early morning.

MTV has lowered themselves to the ranks of just being another cable network on the 500 channel landscape. You know when I launch off about reality programming? It all started on MTV with “Real World”, which is actually nothing like the so-called real world. Whatever happened to programming that specialized in certain niches – like ‘120 Minutes’ or ‘Yo! MTV Raps’. Oh sure, they have Total Request Live (TRL) but that’s about all they have in terms of video programming. Just go check out the schedule – it’s just about *all* special programming. As far as I can tell they’re not even acknowledging that they’re 25 on the station with a special day of all videos all day. It’s on the website that you can watch the 25 years of groundbreaking videos but that’s about the extent of it. Assuming you have a good high speed connection so that there isn’t tons of buffering with each video you’ll get to see them.

I remember MTV in those early days. I was a freshly minted 10 and saw the news reports, and a quick clip of the opening of the station. Two weeks after it debuted in a very small New Jersey market, it was on the local cable network and I became well versed in the Alan Hunter-J.J. Jackson-Martha Quinn circle of VJ’s. Lucky for me, with my short hair and large brown eyes, I slightly resembled Martha Quinn. Unlucky for me, I was more well spoken, and not with any of the teenage crushes that seemed to follow her. sigh

But still…. MTV had a generation of kids following it and growing up with it. It led the cable revolution along with CNN. They were original and daring and made stars out of quite a few bands and singers. And they’re not going to recognize it at all. ‘tis a shame – even one of my local radio stations is going to recognize it today with a nonstop 8am to 6pm set of all 80s music in honor of the anniversary. I guess MTV wouldn’t want to do that since they’ve pretty much lost the original demographic that started with the station in the early days. And it’s still after that same demographic – the teenage/early 20s set – which makes the whole lack of acknowledgement of their anniversary make sense. It goes back to the 60s after all – never trust anyone over 30 but now it’s never trust a station that’s just turned 25…

….especially when they’re trying to act 16.

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In other more important news today, my youngest DD - B - is turning 9 today. Wow. My baby is 9 - how the heck did that happen?

It's been an interesting year for B where she's gone from just that little bit of baby pudge still left to a taller, slimmer, active little girl. She's still got that cute roundness to her face, but the rest of her is thin and tan from spending so much time in the sun at recess. She figured out how to hang down at her knees from the monkey bars, and volunteered to play baseball. She still complains about her homework being hard, but once she gets past that she's zipped right through it as if it were two grades below what she's capable of.

She's taken an interest in cooking and even made us pizza one night for dinner. Actual pizza - well, she used a Boboli crust, but the rest was all her. She still takes care of me when I don't feel well, either physically or emotionally, and still shares her beloved snuzzlephant with me. She's been amassing quite the collection of stuffed elephants, and has built herself quite a zoo using Zoo Tycoon.

I don't know what lies ahead for the little Blue-eyed Boo, but whatever it is she'll approach it carefully and with some curiosity and once she's comfortable she'll grab on with both hands and hang on for the ride.

Happy Birthday Boo!