MTV took action to lock out competitors and ensure their hold on the music television market. They made long-term contracts with cable companies and exclusivity contracts with record companies and recording artists, and took punitive action against artists who premiered their videos elsewhere. MTV has gone out of its way to ensure that competition is knocked out of the race, leaving them with a monopoly on the music television market with which they have consciously influenced young people. With all this power over cable companies, record companies, and artists, MTV has created a monopoly in the music television market. Its main aim has been consumption - of goods advertised on the station, of music, and of the station itself.
Videos resemble commercials and commercials resemble videos.
It is also a time of limbo, when adolescents are neither looking to family nor adult sources for socialization and direction. Adolescence is a time when youth are trying to figure out the world, and how they fit into it. They are experiencing drastic bodily and emotional changes, and look to the media for answers and guidance. Advertisers realize, however, that today's youth have grown up with television. They often seem as though they have no point, no connection to the product, just a strange story.