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When I was growing up, the M in the MTV stood for music, these days it must stand for mush or mindless or messed-up.

I've just got back from a short trip to Vegas, and as you do when you are in a hotel room, you flick through the channels on the off chance that you get a 15 second preview of the special interest film (no luck this trip), and you end up landing on one of the unfamiliar stations. Don't get me wrong, I don't watch MTV here in the UK, but I always thought it was a music channel, but no, it seems that it has become the home of "reality" TV. I put the word reality in quotes as I am dubious as to how real the program I was watching actually was.

I stumbled across a show called "Parental Control". The basic premise is that the parents of a poor child don't like their offspring's current choice of boyfriend/girlfriend so they interview a set of 10 prospective alternatives, pick one each and then force the current incumbent to watch their kid to go on "dates" with the new choices. Then the kid has to choose between the two new choices and their current partner. Ok, so not the greatest format of show, but what made it car crash TV was the fact that it all appeared staged, in fact I am sure I recognised one of the parents and the prospectives partners from other shows. What made it worse was that I sat through 4 of these shows back to back.

In case you were wondering why I was in my room for that long in Vegas, I was just recharging the batteries from the two mile walk back from the MGM Grand garden arena to my room at the furthest end of the block in the Excalibur hotel. Plus was tyring to straighten out after being scrunched up in the seats at the MGM Grand whilst watching the Mosconi cup of 9-ball pool. (Don't get me started on the subject of Americans and sportsmanship).

I do get the impression that the standard MTV channel is now a non music channel and is aimed at teens, but now, nearly 25 years on, I disagree with Dire Straits' Money for Nothing, I don't want my MTV.