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MTV AND ITS INFLUENCE

Music Video

MTV, or Music Television, a cable television network that devotes most of its programming time to video clips that accompany popular songs, has had a profound influence on young people, and on popular culture in general, since its first broadcast in 1982. Although originally conceived as a promotional tool for the popular music industry, it quickly assumed a life of its own and was embraced by young America as a source of information on the latest trends in music, fashion, and opinion. As a visual companion to rock 'n' roll, the video clips shown on MTV were frequently juvenile, vulgar, tasteless, and violent—which inevitably delighted teenage viewers and offended their parents. Advertisers and studio executives attempted to capitalize on the network's enormous success, and soon commercials, television series, and feature films were being shot in the style of music videos—with glossy visuals, rapid editing, and a throbbing pop-music soundtrack. Most of the biggest musical stars of the decade got their first public exposure on MTV, a circumstance that has led some critics to charge that the video network was instrumental in elevating style and appearance over talent in the music industry.

Start on Nickelodeon

MTV was one of the corner-stones of the cable revolution that transformed television during the 1980s. It began on the Nickelodeon network as a half-hour show called Pop Clips. Nickelodeon's shows were mostly aimed at children; but under the guidance of John Lack, a marketing executive for Warner Cable Corporation (which owned Nickelodeon and several other pioneer cable channels), the network went after the teenage audience as well. Teenagers were traditionally considered "low users" by the television industry, and Lack saw visual rock music as a way to reach that vast, un-tapped audience. Lack commissioned a production studio owned by Michael Nesmith, once a member of the pop group the Monkees, to produce the show. In Pop Clips many of the features of MTV were present: the shows were fast-paced mixes of videos set to popular songs, animation, and segments featuring a "veejay," the video equivalent of a disc jockey.

Pittman's Vision

The plan to use Pop Clips as the premise for a twenty-four-hour cable channel was originally Lack's, but the real vision for MTV came from twenty-six-year-old Robert Pittman, who despite his youth had already established himself as a radio station manager in some of the country's largest and most competitive markets. Lack hired Pittman to program movies on The Movie Channel, another of Warner Cable's projects, but they both believed that a video channel would reach a huge audience of twelve to twenty-four-year olds. They first had to convince cable and music executives, however, most of whom were openly skeptical about the network's potential. In January 1981 the owners of Warner Communications, Inc., were convinced and committed the necessary $20 million dollars to fund MTV.

Ebb and Flow

MTV debuted at midnight on 1 Au-gust 1982; the first video aired, appropriately enough, was the Buggies' "Video Killed the Radio Star." The channel's format was already in place, although it took a little while for the veejays—a mix of actors and former radio talents—to settle into their roles. MTV strove for a carefully crafted air of spontaneity: as a critic for Rolling Stone noted, it featured "a well-designed studio that looked like something casually thrown together, scripted patter that sounded like it was made up on the spot, an ironclad format that proceeded like a random chain of events, well-trained actors who came on like folks you'd meet at a campus mixer, and a generally perfectionist attitude in bringing about a what-the-hell, let's-boogie mood." Most unusual about the network's format was the continuous repetition of commercials and videos, what Bob Pittman called "the ebb and flow": "They said to me, when I started MTV, 'You're violating the contract you have with the viewers.…People want a beginning, a middle and an end to their television.' And I said, There is no beginning, middle and end.'"

Contests

MTV was initially unable to penetrate the country's two biggest markets, New York City and Los Angeles, but in the markets it did reach viewers were seeking out the bands they saw. The network featured a contest—contests would become a staple for the channel—after two weeks on the air, flying a lucky winner to New York to see the group Journey. Industry critics began to take notice, but not all of the attention was favorable: in October 1981, at a Video Music Conference sponsored by Billboard magazine, panelists wondered why there were no African American performers on the channel. But MTV defended its almost exclusively white "rock" playlist until the enormous success of Michael Jackson's Thriller album in 1983 finally compelled the channel to start accepting clips by black pop artists.

Advertisers

By that time MTV was reaching more than ten million homes around the country and was be-coming increasingly appealing to advertisers, but it was still operating at a loss. Criticism of the station continued to mount: not only were there ongoing charges of racism, but the network was also being accused of destroying teenage viewers' morality and their attention spans. In the summer of 1983 the network faced direct competition from several fronts, including NBC's Friday Night Videos and Night Tracks, a weekend offering from Ted Turner's TBS Superstation. MTV executives protected their product ruthlessly, frequently exacting exclusive rights to a video before they'd show it and refusing to play bands who gave their videos to the competitors. The competition had another effect: MTV soon was having to pay for the rights to the videos they showed. But the network ultimately triumphed: in June 1983 it reached an agreement with four major record labels for thirty-day exclusive rights to selected videos.

Influence

The network was also clearly having an influence on television, music, fashion, and feature films. The movies Flashdance and Footloose virtually were feature-length music videos, and in fact several videos taken from the movies enjoyed heavy rotation on MTV. In September 1984 NBC premiered Miami Vice, a successful police drama that relied on flashy visuals and video-style sequences. The stylish men's suits worn by the cop heroes of the show became one of the fashion hallmarks of the decade; so did new-wave hairstyles and clothes, tattered heavy-metal fashions, and Madonna's underwear-as-outerwear look—all thanks to their visibility on MTV. By 1985 MTV's popularity could be measured by the backlash against it; the network was a frequent target of complaints from the Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC), a group of senators' and cabinet members' wives who had appointed themselves the foes of "porn rock."

Increasing Budgets

Videos themselves were becoming more sophisticated: budgets for them climbed, so that the average clip cost nearly $100,000. Increasingly "videos" were actually shot on film, and feature-film directors and stars were drawn to collaborate with bands, as when Brian de Palma directed Bruce Springsteen's "Dancin' In the Dark" video. Pop musicians continued to grumble about the medium, complaining that there was entirely too much emphasis placed on their visual appeal as opposed to their musical talent. As Bob Dylan commented, "I know they're thought of as an art form, but I don't think they are." Many of the biggest musical acts of the decade, however, for example Madonna and Michael Jackson, made videos as important an element of their artistic expression as their music.

News

Toward the end of the decade MTV began to modify its format, adding a weekly news broadcast hosted by rock journalist Kurt Loder and experimenting with traditional television formats such as the game show (without much success). The network also hired a younger crop of veejays to replace its original on-air hosts. By the late 1980s, perhaps smarting from the claims that the network had a negative influence on its young viewers, MTV mounted several public-service campaigns, including RAD (Rockers Against Drugs) and Rock the Vote, a voter-registration drive. Several years later, during the 1992 presidential elections, candidate Bill Clinton recognized MTV's influence on its audience and appeared on the network to solidify his support among young voters; MTV celebrated Clinton's election with its own inaugural ball, at which the new president made an appearance.