Music Videos

With working two jobs and being a full time student, I rarely have time to watch tv but I do know that the last time I saw MTV the only mention of music was the title and artist of the song that was at the time being played on whatever reallty show they had on at that time whether it be Real World, Teen Mom, or 16 and Pregnant. I definately remember the days when the only shows that were not music related on mtv were Real World and Road Rules. But at the same time, I also feel like artists are not making music videos as much as they used to. Once again this may be that I'm not really watching them but I don't really hear much about videos anymore. Which leads me to a question similiar to "which came first? the chicken or the egg?", did artists stop making videos like they used to first or did the public stop being interested in music videos once all these reality shows came out? This also makes me think about the evolution and possibly the downfall of music. In many of the genres of earlier American popular music, the most important aspect of an artist career was live performance. Later it moved on to record sales and videos but now with all the downloading that goes on, albums are not being sold as much and artists are not making as many videos. I guess what I'm trying to say is what is the basis for music now? Downloads?