1. Revamp Daria for the Hills crowd: By spotlighting Daria's popular sister Quinn, the show could be retrofitted to attract iconoclasts and super sweet sixteens alike! As commenter Jill Tyrrell said, "They could totally put Daria back in syndication on MTV, and re-name it Quinn or Fashion Club. It'd be like The Hills, in cartoon form! All the LC-Conradettes out there would go crazy for it. 'I love Quinn! She is lyk soooooo awesome! I soooo wanna be in the Fashion Club! But why is that four-eyed lesbo bitch Daria always being to mean to her????'"

2. Hire new casting directors for The Real World: Commenter Antonella fondly recalled that in its early seasons, The Real World "was less about drunken hook ups at celebutard wannabes and more about...well, real people." MTV has proven that ordinary people can still be compelling — just check out the gangly, awkward teens of The Paper — so why does The Real World have to be cast exclusively with musclebound meatheads who can hold a barbell longer than they can hold our interest?

3. Don't Be Bashful About Stoking Nostalgia: VH1 Classic is all well and good, but how about this suggestion from Dave J.: "They should have a 'MTV: Origins' channel or whatever, and only show original programming from back in the day (pre-Real World) and actual music videos from start to finish, and then see how it does ratings wise vs. the actual MTV. It probably wouldn't do as well, but I bet it would do better than Viacom thinks." Dave, anything that might presage a Sifl & Olly revival is OK by us.

4. Leave music video commentary to the professionals: Virtually the only time you're assured of seeing music videos on MTV is during the show FNMTV, which premieres the videos alongside instant viewer feedback sent from MTV.com. While that's all well and good, the peanut gallery isn't likely to provide masterfully crafted insults a la Julie Brown or Beavis & Butthead. Commenter derby reminded us of the amazing special MTV Lame, when a countdown of the network's worst videos ever was hosted by a dream team of comedy including Jon Stewart, Janeane Garofalo, Denis Leary, and Chris Kattan. FNMTV may be interactive, but only on a special like MTV Lame can you see Vanilla Ice menace Jon Stewart with a baseball bat.

5. Begin a Lionel Richie channel: Could it be that MTV had the means to their salvation all along? As floated by crescentia and seconded by 30f, a Lionel Richie channel (with marathon reruns of the music video for "Hello") could be an epic ratings win. Hey, it would at least outdraw Buzzin'.

• PREVIOUSLY: 7 MTV-Defining Stars Who Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Anymore [Defamer]

Pedro Zamora: Before The Real World became principally concerned with two things (castmate hookups, and acting as a feeder for the better-rated Challenges), it was filled with the sort of people who had never been seen on TV before — something reality TV can excel at, if it wants to. One of those people was Pedro Zamora, a gay, HIV-positive educator who died the day after his last episode aired on MTV. No less than President Clinton praised Zamora for giving the country a personal look into those living with the disease.

Why He Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Now: Who would he be able to hook up with?

Daria: It's hard to imagine, but MTV used to relate more to outcasts than potential prom kings and queens — and there was no one more acerbic than Daria Morgendorffer.

Why She Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Now: Not willing to make out with other girls.

Julie Brown: No, not the VJ famous for saying "Wubba Wubba," but the comedienne who hosted the outlandish Just Say Julie from 1989 to 1992. Absolutely everything on the network was fair game to her (long before Beavis & Butthead, she was playing music videos just to mock them), and she satirized sacred cows like Madonna and her own Valley Girl image with impunity.

Why She Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Now: According to this site, Brown was born in 1954, which meant she turned 35 during the first season of her show. 35! Can you even imagine MTV handing a show to a 35 year-old woman now? They'd sooner give the VMAs back to the Wayans brothers.

Tabitha Soren: It may be hard to believe, but there was a point when the MTV News reporter pictured above was derided as nothing more than a shameless attempt to sex up the news. Nowadays, even your local news anchor resembles Jenna Jameson.

Why She Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Now: Only male news personalities are allowed to grow old gracefully on MTV. And by "gracefully," we mean that despite pushing fifty, they are expected to dye their hair and dress like members of Good Charlotte.

Kurt Cobain: The frontman of Nirvana ushered in an age devoid of pop singers and boybands, where nerdy, unconventional acts like Radiohead and Bjork were given common rotation for their groundbreaking videos.

Why He Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Now: It's hard to break out as a music video star when you're relegated to 30-second clips playing alongside the end credits for Run's House.

The Kabel typeface: There may be nothing better associated with MTV than this iconic typeface, which was used to intro and outro every single video (and was phased out last year).

Why It Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Now: No more videos to intro and outro. Which brings us to our last item...

Music Videos: When Justin Timberlake won an award at last year's VMAs, he finished his MTV-dissecting speech by yelling, "Play more damn videos!" Sorry Justin, you're going to have to get your music videos the same way the rest of us do now: on YouTube, at 3am, after a drunken search for Arrested Development's "Tennessee" ends with a lonely, mangled singalong.