Article: Once essential, MTV no longer calls the cultural tune [Corrected 05/ 10/07]

Is MTV headed for the "What Ever Happened To?" list, alongside the kids from "Diff'rent Strokes" and Adam and the Ants? Once the Goliath of pop music and youth marketing, once the czar of hip, feeding irony and experimental-film techniques to the masses, MTV has become a cable outlet for booty-driven reality TV. In 2007, some 26 years after MTV defined a generation or two, all MTV has to say for itself is "My Super Sweet 16."

The mighty MTV has stumbled, and it's twisting around like empty bubbles going down the "Real World XVIII" hot-tub drain. There was a time in the 1980s and '90s when the channel had the ballast to send an act to the top of the Billboard charts, but "American Idol" is ...

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