The Real Purpose

In a documentary titled The Merchants of Cool an NYU professor spells out exactly what MTV's strategy is. It's so manipulative it boarders on unethical. 

"The MTV machine doesn't listen carefully to children. When MTV revenues depend on being ahead of the curve, you have to listen, to know exactly what they want, exactly what they are thinking, so that you can give them exactly what you want them to have. Now that's an important distinction. The MTV machine doesn't listen to the young so it can make the young happier. It doesn't listen to the young so it can come up with startling new kinds of music, for example. The MTV machine tunes in so it can figure out how to pitch what Viacom has to sell"  

- Mark Crispin-Miller, Communications Professor NYU