August 1, 1981…MTV Debuts
The day that video killed the radio star
On August 1, 1981, MTV was born, starting its very first ever broadcast with the appropriate 1979 hit “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
August 1, 1981…MTV Debuts
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9 responses to “August 1, 1981…MTV Debuts”
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I remember well. What happened to all the music though??? All this pubescent “reality” TV crap now.
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MTV2 also started August 1 but in 1996. The first video was “Where it’s At” by Beck.
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Where is the music now? Its nothing but adolescent reality.
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I remember waiting for the first video.
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I remember the big effect as a working musician. 95% of the then current musicians, wouldn’t have gotten a record deal after MTV. Only pretty people got signed. Case in point, Christopher Cross was hot on the charts with a Grammy winning album. In 1980, he didn’t put a picture of himself on his first album because he was a bit overweight. And so, a couple of years later we all had to be video stars.
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Radio survived… even if it continues to shoot itself in the foot on a daily basis. Videos faded to black and MTV isn’t even a shell of what it was today.
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AUGUST 1, 2016. MTV CLASSIC replaces VH1 Classic… and doing all the wrong things… Viacom. What a company.
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Back when mTV actually showed videos!
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I was working at what was then Warner-Amex Cable in Somerville MA that day. It was…different.
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