If video killed the radio star, what did the internet kill?

The New York Times reports that MTV is going to introduce more music into their daily schedule... And by "daily," I mean "nightly." And by "nightly," I mean "starting at 3 am."

A few quick observations about what I think this means.

MTV has not been a major factor in launching new sounds in nearly a decade; so can playing music again, even if only 6 hours between 3 am and 9 am, really make them a music station again? The answer is, of course, no. MTV's strategy here is only to survive the recession with limited loss by cutting costs on all those crappy reality shows they've been trying to pawn off as as entertainment.

With the creation of youtube, mp3 players, internet radio, and other tools where the user can control content, MTV's presentation of bad pop music will remain irrelevant to the music scene. The most promising thing for MTV on this programming adjustment is that, maybe (and this is a big MAYBE) some adolescents will tune in for some music before heading off to school. Anytime a station wins that demographic they should do well with advertising revenue. But I wouldn't count on it.