J A M B U Z Z !!!!

It’s hard to believe it, but MTV, the very first channel dedicated to airing just music, has already reached a quarter of a century in age. Launched on August 1, 1981, the original purpose of the channel was to show music videos. Since its premiere,

MTV has revolutionized the music industry. Slogans such as “I want my MTV” became embedded in the public consciousness, the concept of the VJ (video jockey) 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 by musicians, other TV channels and shows, films and books. We have everything from MTV cribs, MTV overdrive, MTV news and MTV Music Awards to MTV Laguna Beach and more.

MTV’s pre-history began in 1977, when Warner Cable (a division of Warner Communications and an ancestor of WASEC, Warner Satellite Entertainment Company) launched the first two-way interactive cable TV system, Qube, in Columbus, Ohio, which 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. Utilizing the interactive Qube service, viewers could vote for their favorite songs and artists.
Nothing has been out of line with MTV:


MTV’s programming format was created by Bob 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, New York, in the late 1970s. Pittman’s boss, WASEC COO 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.

On 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 accompanied 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 choose this footage because it was in the public domain.

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”. Few may remember it, but sporadically, the screen would go black when someone at MTV inserted a tape into a VCR.

At launch time, the official subscriber count across the U.S. was 3,000,000 (the actual number was 500,000), but the immediate impact might have indicated that every young adult’s television in the country was tuned to MTV. 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 network rose, record companies recognized the potential of the medium as a tool to gain recognition and publicity, and they began to create increasingly elaborate clips specifically for the network. Several noted film directors got their start creating music videos, including Spike Jones, Michel Gondry, and David Fincher.

Today, MTV broadcasts a variety of music, pop culture, youth culture, and reality television shows aimed at adolescents and young adults. MTV has spawned a handful of sister channels in the U.S. and dozens of affiliated international channels around the world. MTV’s moral influence on young people, including examples of censorship and social activism on the channel, has been the subject of debate for years. MTV’s choice to focus on non-music programming has also been contested relentlessly, demonstrating the channel’s continued impact on popular culture.

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