MTV Canada: maybe not so sheesh! after all

My last post was a little down on MTV Canada. Did you catch that? I'm very subtle.

If you missed the subtext, I was irritated that yet another music channel would not be showing music videos. Canada's current video offerings, on MuchMusic and MuchMoreMusic, are slim. Supposedly 65% of their programming is videos, but I'm not sure where they're putting them. Maybe they can count all those "Top 25 Rockers/Bad Girls/Fill-in-the-Blank" type specials they produce? There seems to be an endless parade of sound byte video clip shows - and tedious profiles of bands I don't care about - but not really many vids. Then again, I come from the generation that rushed home to watch after-school video shows, and panicked if we hadn't seen our fave band's latest offering. We were big on videos. Today's kids, not so much. Or so the music channels would have us believe.

So yeah, I was prepared to be all down on MTV Canada. Particularly when I tuned in several times to find a gaggle of bright-eyed, nervy Young People sitting on a couch and interviewing musicians I hadn't heard of. ("Wow, you are an amazing live performer. Do you like performing live? How do you think of your songs?")

But my big wet blanket routine ended yesterday, when I found that the vapid interviewing had stopped, at least temporarily. It had been replaced with a new kind of vapidity: a Laguna Beach marathon, followed by My Super Sweet Sixteen, and Real World: Key West. As a connisseur of reality television, I felt compelled to watch. Nay - obliged.

Ah, MTV Canada. All is forgiven.