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Making it to 25 years is a big milestone in many situations: marriages, college reunions, businesses. But MTV, whose mindset is perpetual adolescence, is happy to ignore its 25th anniversary.

The network's rationale is simple: None of its target audience of 12 to 24 year olds was even alive Aug. 1, 1981, when original MTV VJ Mark Goodman proclaimed, "Starting right now, you'll never look at music the same way again" and played the Buggles' video "Video Killed the Radio Star."

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Same script, different cast: "The Real World" pioneered the reality show and has been going strong for 17 seasons. Season 12, set in Las Vegas, was full of the usual drama.
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The Osbournes (clockwise from left, Ozzy, Sharon, Kelly and Jack) ushered in a whole new type of programming — celebrity reality shows — when MTV debuted their show in March 2002.
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The late J.J. Jackson (from left), Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Martha Quinn and Alan Hunter were MTV's original VJs.
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"MTV has a 25-year heritage of looking forward, rather than back," spokeswoman Marnie Black wrote in an e-mail. "We made the decision when MTV was founded to always stay young and evolve with our audience. To do that, it has been important to serve our audience at that moment, not our audience of yesterday."

As MTV enters its second quarter-century, the station itself is unrecognizable from its 1980s incarnation. In prime hours, it's now a reality-show haven, less about music and more about hooking up ("Next"), makeovers ("Made"), spoiled teens ("My Super Sweet 16," "Tiara Girls") and cars ("Pimp My Ride," "Fast Inc.").

This pastiche of teen-friendly shows has managed to keep MTV relevant, with Nielsen ratings holding fairly steady the past two years. In 2002, the network launched the first of a bevy of celebrity reality shows, "The Osbornes," featuring the aging — and humorously addled — metalhead Ozzy Osborne and his nutty family.

This was soon followed by the surprise success of "The Newlyweds," with Jessica Simpson wondering whether Chicken of the Sea was really made of chicken.

In 2004 came the crowd-pleasing, addictive "Laguna Beach," which followed a bunch of self-absorbed teens in Orange County and has already spawned a spinoff, "The Hills."

Interestingly, the most stable element on the network is "Real World," which, in its astonishing 17th season, is by far the longest running show on MTV. The concept of sticking seven very different people in a house and seeing what happens is essentially the same, whether in Seattle, Paris, Las Vegas or this year in Key West.

Actual music videos, by the way, are now largely relegated to the 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. hours, though MTV makes plenty available online and MTV2.

Viacom, which owns MTV and many other cable networks, isn't letting the silver anniversary go by totally unnoticed. Rather, it has deferred to sister station VH1 Classic, which targets a 30-plus audience that could actually recall the early days of Duran Duran, the Flock of Seagulls and pixie-like VJ Martha Quinn. (VH1 Classic, seen in 42 million households, is not available on basic cable but many people with digital cable or some higher-priced satellite packages have access to it.)

Eric Sherman, general manager for VH1 Classic (and an Emory University grad), said MTV didn't keep extensive

archives from those early days, but it did have its first day of existence available for his network to use.

"We celebrate the great history of music videos, and there's no bigger part of that than MTV," he said.

VH1 Classic will air videos and VJ patter from those first 24 hours today and Aug. 5, starting at 9 a.m., resurrecting the likes of spandex-wearing Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart and Blondie.

MTV MOMENTS

• "Beat It." March 31, 1983: Michael Jackson becomes the first black artist with a video on MTV, nearly two years after the channel's launch.

• "Money For Nothing." 1985: The Dire Straits song mocked MTV and became the band's biggest hit because of MTV. It was one of the first videos to feature computer animation, and Sting made a clever cameo echoing his role in the iconic "I Want My MTV" ads. The rules for music stardom had changed. Being photogenic was now crucial; an eye-catching video made hits.

• Rap blasts off. Aug. 6, 1986: It's no coincidence that "Yo! MTV Raps!" premiered about the same time rap started becoming the dominant music form for young America. Hip white kids like Rick Rubin or the Beastie Boys may have loved rap before, but "Yo! MTV Raps!" brought it into every suburban living room.

• Enter grunge. Sept. 29, 1991: Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video killed the hair-metal scene and signaled the ascendancy of grunge. The images themselves were an arresting accent, with the tattooed cheerleaders and what seemed like an underwater pep rally in a dank gymnasium.

• Heh-heh. Cool. March 24, 1994: Who'd have thunk that "Beavis and Butt-head" would make the cover of Rolling Stone?

• Times Square live. Oct. 22, 1998: The Backstreet Boys shut down Times Square during a "Total Request Live" appearance. The ruckus cemented "TRL's" role as pop culture's home page, with Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears as king and queen of the new scene.

• Tipsy. Oct. 1, 2000: "Jackass" Johnny Knoxville (below) gets tipped over in the port-a-potty. Knoxville specialized in painful on-camera tricks, and "Jackass" quickly became MTV's most popular show.

• Sharrrr-rroonnn! March 5, 2002: The first bleeped-out swear word on "The Osbournes" premiere was followed by 58 others. For a while, the foggy-headed rocker, his type-A wife and self-involved kids became America's first family, if only for the sheer weirdness of their life.

• Ashton "Punk'd" Justin: March 17, 2003: "Candid Camera" with an edge. The debut of Kutcher's series "Punk'd" had a crew posing as the "Tax Enforcement Agency," seizing Justin Timberlake's possessions after saying he owed $900,000 in back taxes. The title is now ensconced in the popular lexicon.

— Associated Press