Ten Years Ago... A Generation of Media Activists is Born

He Goes, 'We're Cutting MTV, ' and Then I Go, 'Like No Way'
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal 1/21/1997, AUTHOR: Richard Gibson]
A cable operator in Des Moines, Iowa picked up two new channels (so far so good) so it had to drop two because it only has a 37 channel system (sounds reasonable) and so one of the channels it dropped was MTV (What! Where are the car keys! Let's go. This is injustice). The teenage population of Des Moines declared war and helped each other deal with withdrawal. A record store in a mall starting piping in MTV via satellite, and many teeny boppers have been going there for a quick fix. The cable operator says the decision is final even though some teenagers filed a petition with thousands of signatures with the City Council. MTV took out an ad in the Des Moines paper listing all the countries that get MTV and the two countries that don't: Siberia and Des Moines.
http://online.wsj.com/page/ppv_snippet-SB853796330389214500-search.html