An Open Letter to Tony DiSanto, MTV President of Programming

Dear Mr. DiSanto

Over the last eleven years, since about the time the decision was made to truncate videos on 'Total Request Live', I would be willing to wager that the network has received a lot of criticism on the direction that they have decided to go. I understand that better than ninety percent, myself included are not, have not and never will be network executives or will deal with the political and monetary pressure that you're under, and I know you have not held your current position long. With that said, you are, and I should hope, have been, a viewer, and therefore should have your fingers on the pulse of the sentiment of fellow viewers.

When MTV began twenty-nine years ago, the concept was relatively simple: provide an outlet for music that wouldn't ordinarily make to the radio, foster the development of the music video, and to spread news and information about the music industry, and its relationship to current events in such a way that the youth of tomorrow would respond. I would simply like to ask, what happened? Did you, or potentially your bosses, forget where you came from?

I was born twenty-four years, three hundred fifty days ago, and for almost twenty-one of them, MTV has had an influence. I didn't have cable for the first decade of my life, but I already knew what MTV was. My sister's friends would tape episodes of 'Beavis and Butthead' for her to watch, and I'd watch with her. The few relatives I had with cable provided me with my opportunity to see live MTV. To this day, I remember that when I was nine or ten, in my great aunt Helen's apartment watching my first music video by myself, Green Day's 'Basket Case' at five some odd in the morning, during 'MTV After Hours'.

When I was eleven, we got cable, and I remember having a 'Holy Trinity' of stations I could watch: MTV, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon, which also suffers from a form of the same problem MTV does. 'The Real World', though I knew was at least prompted, wasn't overly so and was entertaining as a result. Spring break to me meant watching it on MTV because there'd be awesome concert shows and Jerry Springer doing crazy things. Thanks to 'Daria', I came into my own in my discovery of techno music, and as a result found out about rave culture from 'Amp'. When noteworthy events happened, Kurt Loder and Serena Altschul were just as familiar to me as Peter Jennings and Diane Sawyer

A funny thing happened in my late teens and into college. During the great bubblegum pop boom two things happened: the number of music videos and shows about the actual music decreased, and you created MTV2, a home for the more 'alternative' styles of music. It was an efficient, albeit obvious, solution to a problem I believe Viacom foresaw. When you did, Shows like 'Aeon Flux', 'The Head', '120 Minutes' and 'Amp' were either kicked down to MTV2 or kicked off the network all together while 'TRL' ran roughshod over its own premise.In five years, the show went from airing three minute videos to thirty second sound bytes, then plugged Jamster ringtones incessantly. Music videos themselves were on life support, if it weren't for the fact that at the time, reality TV hadn't exponentially increased, the middle of the night would not have been a safe haven for them, unlike the 'Jackass'/'Viva La Bam'/'Wildboyz/'Punk'd' marathons of today.

Now, fifteen days shy of my twenty-fifth birthday, I ask myself, and I ask you, what is a music video on MTV anymore? Call it what you want to call it, I call it a fifteen to thirty second outro, a background for the credits. I see musicians on shows to promote albums, or displaying the contents of their houses, but not actually talking about their music, or music in general. MTV News is non-existent. Spring break is blatantly an excuse to put scantily clad, heavily intoxicated co-eds on TV to sell a lifestyle and a product. MTV original programming went from four cartoons and untold music shows to Jackass and its clones, Laguna Beach and its clones and a bunch of reality shows

I am a member of Generation Y, part of the so called MTV Generation. MTV was so instrumental in pop cultural history, so paradigm shifting that its name was given to not one, but two generations. With that kind of influence, there is an expectation, an expectation to be good influences on the youths of the nation, to steer them in the right direction, if you will. As I write this letter, members of the cast of 'Jersey Shore' were acting very much like their very obvious stereotypes on TMZ for all the world to see, it's apparent to me that since there's no real music anymore, a former slogan rings true, 'MTV is in your music'

I realize that this letter has gone on for a considerable length, so I thank you for your time, but before I stop, I have three questions I would like to know your answer t0: Will a change be made? If so, of what magnitude, and if not, a direct answer why not. I'm a big boy, I understand you all need to support your families.

Thank you again for your time,

Chris Hyatt.