So thrilled when I found this! I was almost a year old when MTV made its debut. I first started watching MTV in 1984 with my mother and my brother. From then on, we always watched music videos. We would also tune in to VH1! This is really exciting for me. I obviously don't remember the debut of MTV but it's nice to see how it all began!  :)

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That’s cool, thanks for posting that. Never got to see it either because no cable. First time I saw MTV was 1995 in college, by then the heyday of all music all the time was over. I mainly just watched Beavis and Butthead. Only time I saw VH1 before that was at my cousins house in the late 80s, The Right Stuff by New Kids On The Block was playing. CMT hung on to music for at least a few more years.

So thrilled when I found this! I was almost a year old when MTV made its debut. I first started watching MTV in 1984 with my mother and my brother. From then on, we always watched music videos. We would also tune in to VH1! This is really exciting for me. I obviously don't remember the debut of MTV but it's nice to see how it all began!  :)

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I can't believe that MTV this coming August will turn 40. :o

I started watching it around 1983-ish, when Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was popular. I remember the moon landing intro with the rock music, and Martha Quinn as the VJ.

I remember when they had videos such as The Buggles "Video Killed The Radio Star" and Gary Numan "Cars".

We never had MTV in Canada until the year 2000.  Our version was called Much Music, which launched in 1984
The most famous VJ to come out of Much Music is FOX News anchor John Roberts

We never had MTV in Canada until the year 2000.  Our version was called Much Music, which launched in 1984
The most famous VJ to come out of Much Music is FOX News anchor John Roberts


Which music videos did they play on Much Music in 1984? I'm guessing the same ones MTV did? I'm curious!

Which music videos did they play on Much Music in 1984? I'm guessing the same ones MTV did? I'm curious!


A good chunk of popular videos of 1984.  The first music video they played was called The Enemy Within by Rush, which was somewhat odd because that song was never released as a single, yet a video was filmed for it

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I was introduced to it in '82. The first song I remember watching was the Motels' Only The Lonely. We used to have it on in the mornings as we got ready for work. To this day, I can't hear the song "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran without thinking of that small one-bedroom apartment. (They pretty much played that song EVERY morning.)

FYI: MTV's driving force was Michael Nesmith of the Monkees.


Cat

FYI: MTV's driving force was Michael Nesmith of the Monkees.


Cat


Wow I never knew that! I wonder if he watched MTV.

And another tidbit about Michael Nesmith-his mother invented liquid paper (white-out).


Cat

And another tidbit about Michael Nesmith-his mother invented liquid paper (white-out).


Cat

Wow, he did? I never knew that, you learn something every day.

A good chunk of popular videos of 1984.  The first music video they played was called The Enemy Within by Rush, which was somewhat odd because that song was never released as a single, yet a video was filmed for it

-XRhKbS8lMk


It's a given that MTV and Much Music were the very first music video channels to launch how important it was for musicians and bands of the era to not just have radio airplay but also to have visual airplay.
These days having audio and visual takes aren't very relevant since the advent of video streaming services Youtube, Vimeo, etc.  I was too young of course to really appreciate the advent of the music video but then again Much Music didn't become a regular channel until 1987.
But the Much Music launch party was quite a party. 

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I can't believe that MTV this coming August will turn 40. :o

I know! It feels like just yesterday when Beavis & Butt-head, Aeon Flux and Singled Out were making new episodes. When the spring breaks were fun to watch. The Real World was good, long before reality TV became the thing (and a bad thing it’s become). At that point we still had quite a bit of music videos, not nearly as much as the 80’s, but for me it was perfect. I got plenty of entertainment from MTV, and I was only 7-8 when I got into it in ‘92/‘93! Lol

I know! It feels like just yesterday when Beavis & Butt-head, Aeon Flux and Singled Out were making new episodes. When the spring breaks were fun to watch. The Real World was good, long before reality TV became the thing (and a bad thing it’s become). At that point we still had quite a bit of music videos, not nearly as much as the 80’s, but for me it was perfect. I got plenty of entertainment from MTV, and I was only 7-8 when I got into it in ‘92/‘93! Lol



And according to Wikipedia the number 1 song for August 1st that week was "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield.

And according to Wikipedia the number 1 song for August 1st that week was "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield.
Over here it was "Use It Up And Wear It Out" by Odyssey.

Happy 40th annivesary to MTV!

MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.

Happy 40th annivesary to MTV!

MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.

Forty years already?!

Of course, back then I was only a year old and my household did not subscribe to cable television. However, I still know about it from having heard of it.

I wish I could remember the debut. But I was only a toddler. I only remember some pieces of my life during that time. My mom remembers the MTV debut. Thankfully, I remember MTV from the mid to late 80s(1984 to 1989)!  :)

I wish I could remember the debut. But I was only a toddler. I only remember some pieces of my life during that time. My mom remembers the MTV debut. Thankfully, I remember MTV from the mid to late 80s(1984 to 1989)!  :)
Is the opening edition on YouTube?

Is the opening edition on YouTube?


It is. But I wish I could remember it as it was being aired in 1981.

Happy 40th annivesary to MTV!

MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.

Happy 40th MTV, you were great a long time ago.

I wish I could remember the debut. But I was only a toddler. I only remember some pieces of my life during that time. My mom remembers the MTV debut. Thankfully, I remember MTV from the mid to late 80s(1984 to 1989)!  :)

I was 7 years old.

It is. But I wish I could remember it as it was being aired in 1981.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvGiRElg3nQ

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That is an interesting intro sequence.

'Tis too bad that the "M" no longer stands for "Music" anymore. :(

MTV supposedly revolutionized editing by normalizing must shorter shots and much faster edits. I don't know how accurate that is, some scholars disagree.

MTV supposedly revolutionized editing by normalizing must shorter shots and much faster edits. I don't know how accurate that is, some scholars disagree.


It's basically accurate. Things may have been headed in that direction anyway, but MTV cemented it. It you look at TV shows and movies (even early music videos, which back then we called "film clips") they seem much slower.

I was just thinking maybe they should put all of their reality based shows on one different separate channel and bring back the music we all used to love.

I was just thinking maybe they should put all of their reality based shows on one different separate channel and bring back the music we all used to loved.

That's what they should do, to remind themselves what the letter "M" was supposed to stand for in the first place. But the problem is, it has deviated too far from the M-word. :-\\

I was just thinking maybe they should put all of their reality based shows on one different separate channel and bring back the music we all used to loved.



That's what they should do, to remind themselves what the letter "M" was supposed to stand for in the first place. But the problem is, it has deviated too far from the M-word. :-\\


We discussed extensively on the "How MTV stopped playing music and lost it's relevance" thread exactly why this cannot and should not happen. What both of you are suggesting is not a bold foreword move but a retreat into nostalgia for increasingly creaky, middle aged Gen X-ers who "want their MTV", to paraphrase MTV's old slogan ("I want my MTV!"). This is neither logical nor tenable.

1) Not logical because we now live in an on demand society. With all videos and much more (live performances, interviews, etc) available on Youtube and other streaming services, who is going to sit around and WAIT for something they like to show up a la the old MTV format? The days of the old "gatekeeper" model are long over.

2) Not tenable because MTV just can't make money on the old format, so how would they sustain? That's the reason they moved away from it in the first place. It was outdated and no longer financially feasible.

What you are both suggesting is a move foreword into the past and that never works.

According to the article "How MTV stopped playing music — and lost its relevance", which can be read in it's entirety here:

https://nypost.com/article/how-mtv-stopped-playing-music-and-lost-its-relevance/

“ 'The MTV that people remember from the 1980s was a wonderful thing,' said former MTV producer Michael Alex. But, he added, nostalgia doesn’t pay the bills: 'There’s the cultural loss versus MTV was an ongoing business trying to survive. The channel hung on as long as it could .'"

"Even beyond the music, though, MTV doesn’t capture the zeitgeist of today’s youth the way it once did. In fact, it’s barely on the radar of the TikTok generation. 'I have two teenage kids, and they know that I worked for MTV, but they’ve never seen MTV,' said Kaufman, who, after working at the network for 15-plus years, is now a senior contributing writer at Billboard. 'They wouldn’t even know where to look for it.'"

"(According to original MTV VJ Alan Hunter) People nowadays say, ‘Hey, what the hell happened to MTV? Can we get it back?’ To which I say, ‘Why? Why would you want it back?’ You’ve got YouTube and the Internet. You can watch any damn video you want to. You don’t need MTV to tell you what to look at anymore.”