For anyone who spent the 1990s glued to MTV, there was a time when turning on the network meant you were almost guaranteed to see a music video. According to one of the era’s most recognizable VJs, that began to change when MTV discovered something even more valuable than music: reality television.
Kennedy, who joined MTV in the fall of 1992 and went on to host Alternative Nation, looked back on the network’s transformation during an appearance on Fox News’ The Girls.
The conversation began when fellow MTV alum Rachel Campos-Duffy, who starred on the third season of The Real World, asked Kennedy a question inspired by The Buggles’ famous “Video Killed the Radio Star”: Did reality television kill the videos?
“Yes,” Kennedy answered. “Reality did kill the videos.”
Kennedy said the change didn’t happen overnight, describing it as a gradual shift that eventually took over the network. When she first arrived at MTV, she recalled, its programming offered an eclectic mix of artists and genres.
“When I first got there, the videos were all over the place,” Kennedy said. “You would see Dr. Dre next to Nirvana.”
She explained that MTV eventually began dividing its music programming into more defined blocks, including Yo! MTV Raps and Alternative Nation, along with pop and other genre-specific programming. The idea was that viewers interested in a certain kind of music might stick around longer.
But Kennedy believes long-form programming ultimately proved far more enticing to the network.
“They realized how much money they could make from that captive audience,” she said. “They stopped caring about the music.”
Campos-Duffy agreed that reality programming gradually spread throughout MTV’s schedule. The Real World debuted in 1992, the same year Kennedy arrived at the network, and became one of MTV’s defining shows of the decade. From there sprung Road Rules, The Challenge, Jersey Shore and countless others.
Campos-Duffy recalled hearing from viewers who discovered The Real World through the marathons MTV aired, particularly in the mornings after people had been out partying the night before.
The two also reflected on just how different MTV’s place in pop culture was during the ’90s. Campos-Duffy noted that before streaming services and social media fractured audiences into countless niches, an enormous portion of their generation was watching the same network.
Kennedy said that difference can be difficult for younger people to comprehend now. Her own daughter once responded to someone describing Kennedy as a “cool VJ” by asking, “What’s a VJ?”
“I just put my head in my hands,” Kennedy recalled. “I’m like, ‘I have failed. I have failed.’”
More than three decades after Kennedy joined MTV, music videos are no longer the centerpiece of the network that helped make them a dominant part of pop culture. But for viewers who remember racing home to catch their favorite artists on MTV, Kennedy has a pretty simple explanation for when everything began to change: reality TV arrived, and the network discovered that keeping viewers hooked on longer programming was simply too valuable to ignore.
Related: Former MTV Star Says Madonna ‘Fully Embarrassed Herself’ at the VMAs: ‘It’s So Upsetting to Me’
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