You’d think after the Live 8 debacle MTV would take a turn towards credibility, but the selection of P. Diddy as the host of the Video Music Awards shows how wrongheaded, how out of touch, how TELEVISION the channel has become.

Just days after the "New York Times" remarked that Puffy is now about fashion, years after he has had any significance in the music business, the MTV brass have anointed him their host.  God, couldn’t they have at least gotten Jay-Z or Eminem or 50 Cent or ANYBODY with a hint of music credibility?  Rather than hiring a third-rate actor semi-famous for selling clothing?  Wasn’t this the death of VH1?  When they started airing fashion awards and programs that concentrated on looks instead of music?  Oh, you might think that channel broke because of a focus on "Behind The Music", but when your programming gets tired you don’t give up its core.  Make no mistake, VH1 switched to talk.  Yup, that’s the radio equivalent.  VH1 means about as much in the music world as 77 WABC.  (And, in case you’ve barely sprouted whiskers, WABC was the home of Cousin Brucie, the home of music on the radio on AM in the SIXTIES and now it’s billed as "NewsTalk".)

MTV has abandoned its core mission and is following the perceived whims of its audience.  The outlet has about as much to do with music as Puffy’s lame cover of "Every Breath You Take".  Unless Puffy plans to reincarnate Biggie Smalls on stage, the VMAs will be a snooze-fest.

Miami?  Will Smith can’t sell a record anymore.  Madonna moved.  Miami is for middle class New Yorkers who follow trends as opposed to SETTING trends.  The town peaked when Gianni Versace was gunned down.

How about doing something innovative?  How about doing something in Kansas City?  OKLAHOMA CITY?

Yes, while MTV hypes itself to high hell, Bonnaroo, in a field in Tennessee, is the largest grossing music festival in the world.

If MTV wanted to regain its credibility, THAT’S what it would do.  Hold a festival.  Get all of America’s hippest acts to appear (and some English ones too!)  Have tents with tech, and maybe ones with deejays, like at Coachella, which SELLS OUT, rather than concoct another insider affair that you can’t get a ticket to unless you stand in front of the stage and portray a screaming meemee.

Spectacle.  That’s what MTV turned the music business into.

And all the spectacles they created can’t do business.  The Spice Girls?  Britney Spears?  The Backstreet Boys?  They’re eclipsed in the marketplace by old geezers like Neil Young, who MOCKED MTV’s corporate culture.

Yup, you can envision the program now, endless spots for MTV’s corporate sponsors.  Hell, didn’t they just admit they’re going to insert MORE marketing into their programming, because people can TOLERATE IT?  But isn’t this the same audience that covets TiVo?  That is abandoning terrestrial radio?  That has embraced the iPod, which allows them to have it their way?

One has to relentlessly beat up MTV until it changes its moniker.  The M can no longer stand for music.  Maybe "miscellaneous" or "misanthropic" or "mediocre" or the appropriate appellation, MONEY, but not music.  Music is something made from the heart, to touch souls, it’s not an afterthought, a sideshow, a diversion, but life itself.  MTV no longer respects music, and therefore the audience no longer respects it.  When you lose respect in high school you change your ways, you try to be nice to the people you’ve offended, you try to prove that you GET IT!  Whereas in the bizarre Stepford secondary school within which MTV resides the airheads are always smiling and the outlet is blameless for theoretically giving the kids what they want.  Whereas what the kids REALLY want is more Pink Floyd, ANOTHER Pink Floyd, which MTV has single-handedly insured will never happen again.  By illustrating that television airplay can sell boatloads of records MTV turned the business on its head, labels only want pretty people who can sell millions as opposed to musicians, and like a dope dealer, or a snotty cheerleader, MTV has now DUMPED the music business, which no longer has anywhere to go, just follows along blindly, looking for just a crumb, just a hit, just a few SPINS to keep their business model going.  But MTV’s left the building, it gives an occasional taste, a wink to the people it USED to be in bed with, but it doesn’t really care about them.  And the irony is this circle jerk between the outlet and the labels is missing the point.  The public, the fans, have tuned out.  Vapid visual programming is no match for art.  Hell, there’s more credibility on a random page on MySpace than there is in this corporate world run by people just looking to make a buck.

Get this straight.  Great music comes first.  THEN comes the bucks.  Not the other way around.