If you were alive and had a cable TV connection in the early 1980s, you were probably watching MTV.

If you’re alive right now, in 2025, and have a cable TV connection, you’re probably not watching MTV Classic.

Let me explain.

When we moved a couple of years ago, we got a new cable TV connection – same provider, different channel choices – and I discovered an incredible time-waster, MTV Classic.

Even though you’re not watching, you can probably guess what MTV Classic shows: music videos from the 1980s and 1990s. The videos that aired on MTV and VH1 back in the day.

Some of the videos are truly classics. Some highlight just how awful a lot of the videos – which were sometimes treated as art by particular artists but were of course just promotional spots provided by record companies – were. Looking at them now, there are some fun examples that evoke nostalgia and some that exemplify how gratuitous and overblown a lot of music videos were.

MTV Classic shows one-hour blocks of 80s videos, heavy metal videos and 90s videos, etc. Just like the old channel, there’s no telling what will come up in four minutes.

There are no VJs, so no chance to discover the next JJ Jackson or Martha Quinn.

The funniest thing I learned while researching MTV Classic is that almost nobody is watching it. In TV audience terms, it’s really almost nobody.

Since the channel was launched in 1998 as VH1 Smooth – no, really – audience numbers have fallen off a cliff. The channel is available to 39 million cable households, apparently, but only about 14,000 viewers are tuning in at any moment. It is the least-watched English-language channel available to most cable subscribers.

I think some personality – or personalities – might help a little, but one thing MTV Classic does that could bring a few viewers its way is the tributes it airs to performers who have died. When crooner Tony Bennett died on July 21, 2023, MTV Classic ran a weekend of Bennett songs, including but not limited to his collaborations with Lady Gaga.

I’m guessing most people didn’t know that – if they even new MTV Classic was on their cable lineup.