reddig33 t1_irpa825 wrote on October 10, 2022 at 12:13 AM

It amazes me that it makes enough money to stay on the air at this point. Their ad buys must be part of a Viacom package deal, or the infomercials in the middle of the night are still enough to keep the lights on. It’s pretty much devolved into a broadcast subchannel.

ScabSwallower t1_irpgb2r wrote on October 10, 2022 at 1:01 AM

Carriage fees are the #1 answer for this. Reruns of this show still perform reasonably well, which is why they're on constantly. Viacom/Paramount control a huge number of channels and negotiate favorable carriage fees with cable providers to carry their channels. MTV is still fairly well rated all things being equal so the channel average boosts the appearance of demand which ups their carriage fee negotiation power. Couple that with the parent company controlling other more highly rated channels and you get the combination you have today. Want to carry VH1 and Paramount Network? Great, take these 8 other channels including MTV at a high rate. When MTV was the big fish the calculus was reversed to include other lower tier channels like VH1 & CMT. But it's the same situation.

Djinnwrath t1_irq2etf wrote on October 10, 2022 at 4:11 AM

It costs nothing to produce.