MTV ( Music Television ) is an American cable television network based in New York City and launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs. Today, MTV still plays a limited selection of music videos, but the channel primarily broadcasts a variety of popular culture and reality television shows targeted at young adults and teenagers.
Since its premiere, MTV has had a profound impact on the music industry and popular culture. Slogans such as "I want my MTV" became embedded in public thought, the concept of the VJ was popularized, the idea of a dedicated video-based outlet for music was introduced, and both artists and fans found a central location for music events, news, and promotion. MTV has also been referenced countless times in popular culture by musicians, other TV channels and shows, films and books.
MTV has spawned numerous sister channels in the U.S. and affiliated channels internationally. MTV's moral influence on young people, including issues related to censorship and social activism, has been a subject of debate for years. MTV's choice to focus on non-music programming has also been contested relentlessly since the 1990s, demonstrating the channel's impact on popular culture.
Previous concepts
MTV's pre-history began in 1977, when Warner Cable (a division of Warner Communications, and an ancestor of Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment (WASEC) launched the first two-way interactive cable TV system, QUBE, in Columbus, Ohio. The QUBE system offered many specialized channels, including a children's channel called Pinwheel which would later become Nickelodeon. One of these specialized channels was Sight On Sound , a music channel that featured concert footage and music oriented TV programs; with the interactive QUBE service, viewers could vote for their favorite songs and artists.
The original programming format of MTV was created by the visionary media executive, Robert W. Pittman, who later became president and chief executive officer of MTV Networks. Pittman had test-driven the music format by producing and hosting a 15-minute show, Album Tracks , on WNBC in the late 1970s.
Pittman's boss, WASEC Executive Vice President John Lack, had shepherded a TV series called PopClips , created by former Monkee-turned solo artist Michael Nesmith, the latter of whom by the late 1970s was turning his attention to the music video format. The inspiration for PopClips came from a similar program on New Zealand's TVNZ network, Radio with Pictures , which premiered in 1976. The concept itself had been in the works since 1966, when major record companies began supplying the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation with promotional music clips to play on the air at no charge. (Few artists made the long trip to New Zealand to appear live.)
Additionally, in the book The Mason Williams FCC Rapport , author Mason Williams states that he pitched an idea to CBS for a television program that featured "video-radio," where disc jockeys would play avant-garde art pieces set to music on the air. CBS cancelled the idea, but Williams premiered his own musical composition, "Classical Gas," on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour , where he was head writer. The book in which this claim is made was first published in 1971, ten years before MTV first came on the air.
Music Television debuts
Further information: First music videos aired on MTVOn August 1, 1981, at 12:01 a.m., MTV: Music Television launched with the words "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll," spoken by John Lack. Those words were immediately followed by the original MTV theme song, a crunching guitar riff written by Jonathan Elias and John Petersen, playing over a montage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. MTV producers Alan Goodman and Fred Seibert used this public domain footage as a conceit, associating MTV with the most famous moment in world television history. Seibert said they had originally planned to use Neil Armstrong's "One small step" quote, but lawyers said Armstrong owns his name and likeness, and Armstrong had refused, so the quote was replaced with a beeping sound.
At the moment of its launch, only a few thousand people on a single cable system in northern New Jersey could see it.
Appropriately, the first music video shown on MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. The second video shown was Pat Benatar's "You Better Run". Sporadically, the screen would go black when an employee at MTV inserted a tape into a VCR.
As programming chief, Robert W. Pittman recruited and managed a team for the launch that included Tom Freston (who succeeded Pittman as CEO of MTV networks), Fred Seibert, John Sykes, Carolyn Baker (original head of talent and acquisition), Marshall Cohen (original head of research),Gail Sparrow (of talent and acquisition), Sue Steinberg (executive producer), Julian Goldberg, Steve Casey (creator of the name MTV and its first program director), Marcy Brafman, Ronald E. "Buzz" Brindle, and Robert Morton.
Following concepts
HBO also had a 30 minute program of music videos, called Video Jukebox , that first aired around the time of MTV's launch and would last until late 1986. Also around this time, HBO would occasionally play one or a few music videos between movies.
SuperStation WTBS launched Night Tracks on June 3, 1983, with up to 14 hours of music video airplay each late night weekend by 1985. Its most noticeable difference was that black artists received airplay that MTV initially ignored. The program ran until the end of May 1992. A few markets also launched music-only channels; most notably Las Vegas' KVMY Channel 21, which debuted in the summer of 1984 as KRLR-TV Vusic 21 . The first video played on that channel was Michael Jackson's "Thriller."
Shortly after TBS began Night Tracks , NBC launched its music video program called Friday Night Videos which was considered network television's answer to MTV. Later renamed simply Friday Night , the program ran from 1983 to 2002, at which time it was replaced by other programming. ABC's contribution to the music video program genre in 1984, ABC Rocks , was far less successful, lasting only a year.
Music videos on MTV
The original purpose of MTV was to be "Music Television," playing music videos 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, guided by on-air personalities known as VJs, or video jockeys. The original taglines of the channel were "You'll never look at music the same way again," and "On cable. In stereo." Although the concept of playing music videos 24/7 has long been abandoned, MTV still promotes and plays a limited selection of music videos on its TV channel and web site.
Original VJs and format
Further information: List of MTV VJsMTV's early format was modeled after top 40 radio. Fresh-faced young men and women were hired to host the network's programming and to introduce videos that were being played. The term VJ (video jockey) was coined, a play on the initialism DJ (disc jockey). Many VJs eventually became celebrities in their own right. The original five MTV VJs in 1981 were Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn. In 2005, this group (except for J. J. Jackson, who died in 2004) became hosts on Sirius Satellite Radio.
The early music videos that made up the bulk of MTV's programming in the 1980s were often crude promotional or concert clips from whatever sources could be found. As the popularity of the channel rose, and record companies recognized the potential of the medium as a tool to gain recognition and publicity, they began to create increasingly elaborate clips specifically for the channel.
A large number of rock bands and performers of the 1980s were made popular by MTV. Such acts ranged from new wave to hard rock or heavy metal bands such as Adam Ant, Eurythmics, Culture Club, The Fixx, Split Enz, Prince, Ultravox, Duran Duran, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, RATT, Def Leppard, The Police, and The Cars. The network also rotated the videos of "Weird Al" Yankovic, who made a career out of parodying other artists' videos.
MTV also played some classic rock acts from the 1980s and earlier decades, including David Bowie, Journey, Rush, John Mellencamp, Billy Joel, Genesis, Hall & Oates, Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, and ZZ Top; newly solo acts such as Robert Plant, Phil Collins, Paul McCartney, David Lee Roth, and Pete Townshend; as well as forgotten acts such as Michael Stanley Band, Shoes, Blotto and Taxxi. The hard rock band Kiss publicly appeared without their trademark makeup for the first time on MTV in 1983.
Breaking the color barrier
During MTV's first few years on the air, very few black artists were included in rotation on the channel. Those who were in MTV's rotation included Eddy Grant, Tina Turner and Donna Summer. The very first non-white act played on MTV in the US was UK band The Specials, which featured an integrated line-up of white and black musicians and vocalists. The Specials' video "Rat Race" was played as the 58th video on the station's first day of broadcasting.
MTV rejected other black artists' videos, such as Rick James' "Super Freak," because they didn't fit the channel's rock dominated format at the time. The exclusion enrag
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