I dunno if this is still even the pop culture hot takes thread anymore but: MTV not being about to make the proper transitions to stay relevant with the youth in the Zoomer Tik Tok era is one of the biggest pop culture balldrops of all time. They lost their 30+ year mandate of being the pop culture hub for American youth culture in the most preventable foreseeable way possible. Their problem with that brand is in the last 10 years they kept the near obsolete cable channels showing non-stop Ridiculousness, while doing major cuts to MTV News and their digital assets, it should have been the exact opposite. This isn't a hack "MTV don't play music videos anymore!" argument either, I don't think that is the problem. I think it's more that they refused to make a major pivot to pop culture/music centric digital content when they should have.
I agree but I'm not sure its a ball drop as much as an impossibility for a corporation once it reaches a scale to completely upheaval its systems, infrastructure and assets. When a market starts to decline the most established dominate players are the last to fall, the newer arrivals and smaller fish will die or pivot to new markets, the big fish will stick around to absorb the scaps the leavers gave up, they will scrape by until complete collapse of the market or downsize to a sustainable size.
Blockbuster is probably a bigger collapse. They could have bought Netflix or even started their own digital business but refused until it was too late. Blockbuster was synonymous with renting movies among all age groups but they just couldn't see it.
Both bum me out, even if many people hate Blockbuster with a passion for the stranglehold it put on mom and pop stores/the whole censorship stuff
Like hire 2 or 3 legit music journalists with industry sources to get scoops. Have a team of like 5 or 6 roaming MTV News reporters on red carpets, doing artist interviews, following major tours talking to fans. Create a podcast network. Create a tinydesk-like digital concert series for popular artists. Put it all on tiktok, YouTube, and twitch. Boom you have MTV catered for the Zoomer generation. Not hard.
MTV Spring Break party bash concert streamed live on Twitch. Like come on this stuff is a no brainer. Make me a producer MTV.
Paramount is getting new ownership soon. Maybe the Skydance people will see the light and fix MTV Fix Comedy Central too while they're at it. That used the be where every standup in the country got their start on TV. They've lost the "home base for standup comedy" game to Netflix. I don't even think CC does original standup specials anymore.