MTV History:A Time of Great Transformation For The Music World

In the early 80s the concept of music was brought to include visuals of artists along with the singles they released. MTV(For Music Television in original launch) was known as the network “Sights and Sounds” in 1977 before officially hitting the air on cable systems on August 1, 1981 with the first music video being “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. The legal ID promoted the 1969 Neil Armstrong first “Man on the Moon” a project that NASA was doing at that time, the ID would show the graphics in a different way each hour and was dropped in response to the explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger in early 1986. Other artists played on the network in it’s first stages include The Fixx, Pat Benetar, and Dire Straits who had the song “Money for Nothing” which was a popular video among MTV viewers as it promoted the network and made the popular phrase “I Want My MTV“ commonplace in households across America. One of my favorite songs from the 80s is the Dire Straits classic and I most likely would be getting down in the living room had I been a part of a great history in the evolution of the music scene.

The VJs, a play on the radio station term of DJs, were Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, JJ Jackson and Martha Quinn, these were the big four to take the TV airwaves and play trending music videos as they were made available to put on the MTV lineup. Later on in years and beginning in the 90’s we saw a transition from the retro style of the previous decade to the Grunge/New Age likes of Nirvana, Backstreet Boys and Goo Goo Dolls, also in this decade was when we began seeing the first reality shows premiering while working to expand the channel’s lineup to include more than music videos, this led to a gradual decline in the amount of programming with music videos, however in 2012 a music countdown was brought back to the air to commemorate the heyday of the original content that aired in earlier years. Time went on and other than some music shows in the evenings the MTV of the modern times has reality shows and some game shows attached to it.

MTV Logos Used in Early Days

The age target market falls to people who are between the age of 12 and 34 years old with an emphasis on the younger generation watching for an estimated two to three times a day. During this time period I easily see music content being the primary programming among these groups, for instance a teenager who likes to rock out to, say a cut from Def Leppard’s Rock of Ages single, when I was that age even though not being a part of the 80s generation I still listened to the bands Bon Jovi and even put some Night Ranger in the mix on occasion. A lot of MTV has changed but what does not change is the audience engagement and especially nowadays with social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. MTV is also gaining an online audience through services like YouTube TV that most recently added the channel to the lineup, getting your fix can happen anywhere even when out of the house and somewhere else.

Even through advances we will see the MTV network into the future. Good luck to Viacom.

-Tristan