One thing you need to know about me is I love Rock. Both Rock Music and Blackpool Rock.
However, for this article, it’s gonna be about the former. Rock is a pretty broad genre in and of itself, System Of A Down, OneRepublic, AnalCunt (yes that is a real band, look it up) and even N.E.R.D. could all be considered rock. As a Rock fan myself, I usually tend to see myself tune into channels dedicated to Rock. Makes sense doesn’t it? You don’t see a Classical Music fan listening to KISS now, do you? Nowadays we have only one Rock channel (which we’ll get to, hold your horses), but back in the days of MP3 Players and Tony Blair we had loads to choose from, suiting all tastes. In fact, some played different types of rock. One just played whatever alternative music they wanted. That channel being…
MTV2
If you’re familiar with MTV, then you’ll know how they went from 24/7 music, to airing shows like The Osbournes, Jackass and Jersey Shore, to being a 24/7 loop of Ridiculousness. However, if you’ve been reading then you’ll see a 2 at the end of that MTV. MTV2 has a somewhat more interesting and varied history.
Originally, the channel was simply called “M2”, and it focused on being a music-only version of MTV, since the main channel started to air more and more non-music related programming. At launch, the channel had a more varied mix of music videos. Although as the 2000s rolled around, the playlist began to drift more into Alternative. In fact, 2002 was when M2 became MTV2 in Europe.
MTV2 had many themed shows that all fit in with the channel’s “Alternative” crowd, including the channel’s main hit “Gonzo”. Originally hosted by Zane Lowe, the show was about him interviewing many alternative and rock acts alongside performances, all done from a cheap couch in front of a green screen. The show was arguably MTV2’s biggest show, with Gonzo outlasting MTV2 itself. It was even revived a few years back with Radio 1’s Jack Saunders at the helm. If you’re wondering where Zane is, he’s hosting a show on Apple Music now. Good for him.
Another staple of MTV2 was the late-night experimental music programme, “120 Minutes”. The show featured more weird and experimental music videos, with featured artists including Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Ween, Justice and even Calvin Harris. Yes, THAT Calvin Harris. One of my personal favourites is the track “Chinese Translation” by the band “M-Ward”, a rather chilled and calm song compared to what we’ll be discussing a bit later on.
MTV2 also aired Shows. Not like Music-based shows, but shows that have also aired on MTV. Shows aired include but not limited to; Jackass, Dirty Sanchez, Beavis and Butt-Head, Wildboyz, Daria, Celebrity Deathmatch, South Park and even Spongebob. In fact sometimes they’d air Spongebob at 2am… followed by Beavis and Butt-Head. They’d even acquire shows from the American MTV2 such as the darkly hilarious kids show parody “Wonder Showzen”, created by the same people who would give us classic Adult Swim shows like Xavier Renegade Angel, The Heart, She Holler and the quite frankly underrated The Shivering Truth. MTV2 gained a reputation as being the “Weird” music channel, or as Charlie Brooker put it: “...specialises in artsy, alternative stuff which sometimes tips straight over into outright pretension.” The channel in its weird alternative state would carry on until MTV decided that MTV2 should DIE. Or rather, get renamed. It was renamed before into “MTV Two” to coincide with the channel’s 2007 rebrand but in 2010, MTV Two became MTV Rocks. With it focusing on more general rock tracks rather than being weird. In 2020, the channel closed alongside Club MTV and MTV OMG. The channel does live on (or rather, MTV Rocks) as a FAST channel on Pluto TV. But, it just won’t be the same as the MTV2 who pushed boundaries, the MTV2 who wasn’t afraid to air out-of-the-ordinary and obscure videos you wouldn’t see on any other channel, the MTV2 who wasn’t afraid to air the uncut video for Tenacious D’s “Fuck Her Gently”. Sadly folks, shutdowns are going to be a running theme as we move on to our next channel.
SCUZZ
If you were to ask a stranger what the ultimate heaven for Rock and Metal on TV was, on the off chance they don’t tell you to fuck off, they’ll probably say Scuzz. Scuzz was launched by Sky of all people in the year 2003, alongside also launching alternative music channel “The Amp” and popbitch central, “Flaunt”.
The channel was aimed towards 14-21 year old boys and initially boosted a playlist of artists such as Limp Bizkit, Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age. Alongside that, original programming was commissioned for the channel, including Cuddly Snuff. I haven’t been able to find any clips of the show so I’ll have to go off some old articles but essentially it was a TV show that promised "101 ways to destroy teddy bears in the most inhumane ways possible" and was even considered for a run on Sky One, which to my knowledge never materialised.
Another early Scuzz staple was The Mullet Man. Originally, he had been seen in early promos for the channel alongside his poor sidekick, Lucky Larry who was anything but. Mullet Man proved so popular, he was spun-off into his own show called “The Ties That Bind”. Nah i’m just kidding, it was of course called “The Mullet Man Show” and involved Mullet Man getting into all sorts of weird hijinks alongside his sidekicks and former Page-3 model Jo Guest. I won’t go too in-depth here but my friend [bluefrog] has written an article on Lost Media which goes in-depth on Mullet Man so check it out on this site once you’re done reading this.
However, Sky’s full ownership of Scuzz wouldn’t last long as in 2005, the channel’s operation would be taken over by CSC Media Group (who also had True Entertainment and Pop under their belts). Despite this though, Sky would retain full ownership and advertising control. On April 1st 2006, The channel would receive its first major facelift, rebranding to something more akin to a Evanescence fan site.
Also in the same year, Sky would fully sell Scuzz (along with Flaunt and Bliss, the channel formerly known as The Amp) to CSC Media Group. Scuzz also started showing themed weekends and evenings dedicated to bands like In Trivium and Slipknot, along with more and more “emo” bands like Panic! At The Disco and Fall Out Boy being added into rotation. Despite this, Scuzz would continue to champion lesser-heard acts from homegrown bands like You Me at Six, Enter Shikari, Bullet for My Valentine. They even introduced the UK to International bands like Paramore, Avenged Sevenfold, Pierce The Veil, Dragonforce and BABYMETAL.
Despite Scuzz garnering a royal fanbase of Emos, Metalheads, Punks and people who would tell you that “IT’S NOT A PHASE, MOM!”, it would succumb to the fate most music channels from the 00s go through, a shut down. Scuzz managed to last a good while, going through different facelifts and logos all the way up until 2018. After CSC was bought out by Sony, they announced the closure of Scuzz. Oh and Sony Crime Channel 2 but let’s be real, no one cares about that channel.
The channel which brought a plethora of Heavy acts to the UK and managed to garner a cut audience, Gone. Like that. So on November 14th 2018, all the scheduled programmes were replaced with tribute shows and the rather dramatically named “SCUZZ IS DEAD”. The channel would go through some of their biggest hits before ending at 9am on November 15th. The channel was abruptly cut off during the video for Bowling for Soup’s “Girl All The Bad Guys Want”, with the last full video being “Resist” by Shadows Chasing Ghosts.
I’d argue out of all the channels presented here, Scuzz is probably the best one. It had the best mix of mainstream and obscure Rock and Metal acts, with a fat yorkshireman with a mullet harassing Bruce Dickinson for good measure. However, Scuzz wasn’t the only option for Heavy Rock, you also had…
Kerrang! TV
If you know anything about Rock and Metal, you’ve definitely heard the name “Kerrang” pop up in conversation. Now for our sake, this is about the TV channel but for context Kerrang was launched as a magazine covering heavy metal in 1981, 8 years before the unrelated Techno smash, “Pump Up The Jam”.
The magazine was operated by EMAP, who also owned magazines such as Q and Heat. When time came for expansion, EMAP asked “What would be the two places people would likely listen to Music?” and then answered that question by launching Kerrang! Radio in 2000 and our main subject, Kerrang TV in 2001.
The channel was launched as a joint-venture between EMAP (who had the kerrang tv licence) and The Box (who had previously launched the Hip-Hop focused station Kiss). Like the Box channels, Kerrang had a service where viewers could request music videos, with artists like Limp Bizkit and Tenacious D often being the most requested.
Despite Kerrang being mainly Rock and Metal-focused, I wouldn’t be amiss if I said that their video choices were a bit… Odd? Like for example, they would play tracks from Eminem and even Gwen Stefani? I mean I know she was in a ska-punk band but Hollaback Girl does not belong on the same channel as Spit It Out! Thankfully, some of the more questionable video choices would be removed in the channel’s later years. Kerrang TV had a varied set of bumpers and presentation throughout the years, with my personal favourite set being a series of bumpers featuring three characters, all of which represent Kerrang’s punk spirit. Kerrang TV is the longest running of the channels i’ll be mentioning today, running from 2001 to 2024, outliving Scuzz and MTV2/Rocks.
Behind the scenes, Channel 4 would buy out a 50% share in the Box Plus Networks, allowing them to launch 4Music, originally a strand on The Hits before replacing the channel outright. Then in 2019, it was announced Channel 4 would be buying the channels outright, gaining full control of the Box channels, including Kerrang.
At the same time, Bauer (who owned Kerrang’s Print and Radio outlets) would sell off the Magazine rights to a company called “Wasted Talent LTD” who also owned Dance magazine, Mixmag.
With Channel 4’s rights to the Bauer brands about to run out, It was a matter of when, not if, Kerrang TV would bite the bullet. And so, it was announced that as part of their “Fast Forward” strategy, The Box channels would be closed down in 2024. The Box channels began running tribute programmes, with radio presenter Alex Baker hosting Kerrang’s one. The channel (along with the other Box channels) would all close down at 12am on June 30th, with Thnks Fr Th Mmrs by Fall Out Boy being their last ever video.
Kerrang TV’s closure is a stark reminder of how much TV networks would rather you’d use their streaming service rather than using a linear presence. You could say Music TV as a whole is dying thanks to services like Spotify and Apple Music but personally Music TV is good as a background noise, letting the channel choose the songs for you rather than having to look by yourself. Thankfully, there is one Rock channel left on TV, that being
NOW ROCK
Now Rock was launched in 2022, initially as a replacement for Now 90s. It’s both the newest rock channel and the only one here that’s still running. The initial playlist for Now Rock featured more mainstream classic rock programming, with artists like Queen and The Police being featured more often than the heavier artists you’d see on Kerrang. The channel itself is split into two sections (well i say sections, they’re just two different DOGs), with Now Rock maily being 90s-now and Now Classic Rock being for stuff mainly made before the 90s. They’re not really concrete though (I’ve seen Imagine Dragons with the Now Classic Rock logo on it for god's sake.)
The closure of Kerrang however caused a shake up of Now Rock’s schedule, with Classic Rock shows being relegated to Sundays. The channel introduced more 00s-onward Music including a show hosted by Alex Baker, who formerly worked at Kerrang TV. It seems he got over the channel’s death quickly.
Now Rock is still going… somewhat strong to this day, although compared to Kerrang and Scuzz their playlist is fairly limited in terms of 00s stuff. Still though, a decent channel.
Now before we go, here’s a sort of lightning round of channels I didn’t have time to go through.
LAVA
You could think of this as a proto-now rock in a way, launched in 2010 by Mushroom TV (who also owned Clubland TV and Starz at the time). The playlist was made up of more obscure acts and bands. It was rebranded as Greatest Hits TV in 2011.
The Amp
Touched upon earlier, The Amp was less a rock channel and more so a general “Alternative” channel. Playing acts like Radiohead and Royksopp. The channel was replaced with Bliss in 2005.
VH2
A sister channel to VH1, VH2 was less focused on heavy bands and more so on general indie acts, or “Real Music” as they put it. Launched in 2003, it featured artists like Blur, Oasis and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The channel was shut in 2006 and replaced with the equally obscure MTV FLUX.
So overall, that’s my history of Rock TV channels. It was a long but fun experience to write but I thank you for reading. Why not check out the other stuff on this site, and also all of the wonderful stuff by QLMB, who I thank ever so much for letting me publish this article.
Bye :)