I loved MTV in the 80s. They lost me some time in the 90s when they stopped showing music videos, which was strange since they are called “Music Television”.
They officially stopped being "Music Television" a long time ago.
If MTV could've continued being a music video channel, they would have. It was a great business model. Free content provided by the record companies. The free ride ended when the record companies, seeing that MTV was rolling in the dough, wanted them to kick in paying for what were increasingly expensive videos.
To further complicate the matter, there were more videos than minutes in the day. This is a problem when you've just spent a half million dollars on a video and MTV won't play it. So how do you get them to play it? You pay them! Oops, isn't that "Payola" and illegal?
Seeing the writing on the wall, MTV had no choice but to back away from videos. But they still needed cheap programming. And thus, reality TV was born. A gift from MTV.
I also remember “Night Tracks” on TBS on Friday/Saturday nights...took 8 houra of their programming so that is how big music videos were (4 hours, then repeat of first 4 hours)...”Night Flight” on USA Network...”Friday Night Videos” on NBC (after Saturday Night Live)...VH1 as well...the Reagan years, music TV as it should be...good times.