Memories of the '80s: How MTV Really Influenced the Decade

On august 1st 1981 a new revolutionary 24 hour music video channel was launched. Of course, most of us never saw this happen. If you wanted to have MTV then three things had to happen. You had to have parents cool enough to hook your house up to cable television. You had to have a cable company that was cool enough to add MTV as a channel. And you had to live in a neighborhood that actually had cable television available. For this reason most Americans did not have the ability to watch MTV in the '80s during it's heyday. But just because one could not get MTV where they lived did not mean they could not witness MTV's influences on pop culture.

Soon after MTV was launched it blitz the airwaves with loud commercials where rock stars instructed you to pick up your phone and demand that your cable company adds MTV. The phrase "I Want My MTV" soon became a popular catch phrase, popular enough that British rock band Dire Straits used it in their song Money For Nothing. The campaign was effective as for the next three years as the commercials aired millions did demand their cable company add MTV as a channel. But for the millions who had no cable television there would be no MTV with the exception for the occasional syndication of it's annual music video awards in truncated form.

This was a unique situation. MTV was a highly promoted product that was only available to a fraction of the country. By 1982 everyone knew what MTV was without ever seeing it. MTV had created a demand for music videos with their promotional campaign. For the millions who could not get MTV and saw no chance of ever getting cable television access the question was why wasn't regular broadcast television showing these videos? Outlets for music videos were far and few. NBC had The Midnight Special, a weekly live music show that occasionally aired the odd music video to fill out the hour. But in 1981 it's producer Dick Ebersol took over Saturday Night Live and not able to do both had The Midnight Special cancelled, replacing it with reruns of Second City Television. In syndication there was Casey Kasem's America's Top 10 which had been on the air since 1980 and featured three to four videos from one of that week's top ten charts. Another syndicated countdown show called Solid Gold stuck with live performances but occasionally aired a music video, but otherwise the entire burden of music videos on broadcast television fell on America's Top 10. The one drawback was that the show only aired videos for songs that reached the top 10 of the Pop, Soul or Country charts while occasionally airing a video from a cut off a top 10 album. This strict format limited which videos could air on the show.

There were sporadic attempts at music video hybrid shows. In 1982 a short lived syndicated sketch comedy show called Laugh Trax which featured a young Howie Mandel was promoted as a comedy and music video program. It featured two music videos a week. 1983, two years after the debut of MTV, there was finally an explosion of music video programs on broadcast television. The first was FM Television, a show that aired clips from Germany's own version of The Midnight Special called Musikladen mixed with a few current music videos. This was followed a month later by New York Hot Tracks, a show that aired dance videos produced by ABC New York and both syndicated and shown over other ABC affiliates. The ABC network also began production on their own half hour music video show called ABC Rocks. Back at NBC Dick Ebersol was asked to revive The Midnight Special now that MTV created a resurgence in the popularity of pop music. Ebersol suggested that it would be a lot easier and cheaper to simply run a 90 minute music video only show instead of a studio performance show. The result was NBC's Friday Night Videos. In the fall of 1983 other syndicated music video shows followed including Top 40 Video and Music Magazine. A typical complaint among those wanting to see music videos was that the stations who picked these shows up usually aired them very late, around 3:00 am in the morning. The reason for this was the way the shows were syndicated. The station that aired the video show did so for free provided that they air the commercials that were attached to it. Stations were not interested in giving away prime time commercial time, even if it did mean free programming. But they were interested in free programming for their late night hours where they were unable to sell commercial time anyway. The problem was that the late night airings got low ratings which meant that if enough markets aired these shows at 3:00 am then they would lose their sponsors which is what paid for their production, therefor leading to cancellation. For this reason several syndicated music video shows failed, while for those without MTV who wanted to watch music videos it meant staying up very late.

Late in 1983 NBC's Brandon Tartikoff wrote an idea for a show on a slip of paper called MTV Cops which was eventually developed into Miami Vice. Not only was the shooting style and costumes influenced by music videos but an entire episode was based on the Glen Frey music video Smuggler's Blues. Other movies and television shows began to be influenced by the music video style. Of course we are talking about the style of video shown in the mid '80s. Late '70s and early '80s had it's own style of videos. Actually shot on video with sets that resembled those of Broadway musicals and costumes made out of Lamé. As record labels began spending more money on videos the sets became more elaborate. For the most part music videos seemed to be heavily influenced by the movie Road Warrior both in sets and costumes. Early '80s bands dressed outrageously in order to get noticed. Devo got noticed for their weird plastic step pyramid hats while A Flock of Seagulls gained notice from lead singer Mike Score's weird hairstyle. Cyndi Lauper created one of the best albums of the '80s with She's So Unusual but gained most of her fame from her outrageous costumes and accompanying manic music videos. Music critics complained that with MTV artists were more interested in costume and hair styles than writing good music. This is ignoring the fact that before MTV existed there were artists like Elton John and Kiss who got their notoriety from outrageous costumes. Strangely enough with the arrival of MTV Elton John toned down his outfits while Kiss decided to remove their makeup.

1983 was the peak of the music video fad, not because people began to lose interest in the format but because MTV decided to take steps to get rid of their competition. Deals were made with record labels giving MTV exclusive rights to air new music videos forcing the others to wait anywhere from a month to a half year before they could air the same video. MTV spent a small fortune buying the exclusive rights to air Michael Jackson's Thriller, an exclusive they held on to for 20 years. The one month exclusive MTV gave them an advantage over the other cable outlets like TBS's Night Tracks which gradually drew away their viewers. While this strategy worked with the competing cable networks it would not work with broadcast television in areas where MTV was unavailable. So they conspired with NBC giving Friday Night Videos the right to air MTV exclusives. This eventually lead to Friday Night Videos being the only major broadcast video show left standing by 1989. In 1983 several UHF stations began broadcasting 24 hour music video formats, one of which was New York's U68. They were able to hold their own against MTV until 1984 when the FCC relaxed it's rules on allotted commercial time allowing the broadcast of half hour infomercials. U68 was bought out by Home Shopping Network who could now legally broadcast their channel over the airwaves and only saw the channel as an easy broadcast signal. The videos were abruptly pulled overnight and replaced with the Home Shopping Network. Other stations did away with their 24 hour music video formats replacing them with 24 hours of infomercials. Local television was effected as they used their late nights and weekend time slots to air even more infomercials. Music video shows were quickly squeezed out.

But the biggest problem was that both MTV and NBC got board with music video programming and decided to expand into other entertainment. Friday Night Videos gradually began turning into a sketch comedy show while MTV began airing shows like Real World and MTV Sports. By the time most people were finally able to get MTV in the '90s they discovered that it was already half gone, replaced with game shows, cartoons and reality programming. Other music video channels appeared to fill in the gap left by MTV but were either bought out by MTV or were already owned by MTV. In each case whenever these channels became popular MTV executives quickly removed the videos and replaced them with alternative programming. The dream of a 24 hour music video channel belongs to the '80s, even if most Americans were never able to actually see it.