MTV, once the pre-eminent medium for the broadcast of music videos, has become the pre-eminent medium for reality TV. MTV’s pragmatic diversification has moved the brand further from its roots and into its current dilemma: music television or not? MTV invests a lot of resources in researching, understanding, and adapting to its audiences’ evolving needs and desires. But as it continues to experiment with low-cost content, the cultural pioneer has strayed from its music-centric identity and lost a bit of its edge. Despite that, MTV continues to have an impact on popular culture, now on a global scale, with its number one series of all time, Jersey Shore. In the past year, MTV’s annual Video Music Awards program also showed phenomenal growth, a huge triumph for the brand and an homage to its former persona. Beset with an identity crisis and in the midst of a tough game of catch-up with its target audience, the brand has some distinct challenges ahead. Constant innovation is mandatory for a youth-oriented brand such as MTV. It will need to pursue an aggressive creative strategy in order to capture the attention of a generation with an exceptionally short attention span. MTV would do well to push the boundaries and recapture some of its lost edge — the very thing that made it a household name more than 30 years ago.