The joke/trope about MTV not playing any music was alive and well when I finally got MTV around '98 or so when I was in high school. TRL was the show that was o

The joke/trope about MTV not playing any music was alive and well when I finally got MTV around '98 or so when I was in high school. TRL was the show that was on when I got home from school. I remember when Eminem first was shown as a "hot" new video, then jumped to #1 on TRL. That's how influential the show was with their base (which was me I guess, sorta). At first they would play a large chunk of the videos before cutting out, then as it kept getting more and more popular, less and less of the actual videos would play. For example, they started inserting live "fans" talking about the video (e.g. I REQUESTED LIMP BIZKIT BECAUSE THEY ROCK TEEN SCREAM) which cut out the sound from the music video. Then they started bringing in celebrities to hawk their latest album or movie, they'd spend about 20 seconds on the video, then cut to the celebrity for their reaction and then a question about their new video or new album or new product. The producers of the show would also lick their lips whenever something "crazy" happened so they could repeat that clip over and over again in 5 different "music" clip shows and/or discuss it during the MTV MUSIC AWARDS. Example: Mariah Carey had her infamous breakdown on TRL and all they just played that clip of her non-stop. "MTV NEWS REPORTS MARIAH CAREY BREAKDOWN! YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!", "TOP 5 CELEBRITY MELTDOWNS That Happened on MTV" Basically MTV the channel became a, "hey remember when this happened on MTV?" show. Less and less of their content was being driven by music videos since music videos make $0. Bringing in celebrities, having celebrities, reality shows that cost almost nothing to make (I'm surprised they didn't figure this out right off the bat with Real World). That's where the real money laid.