MTV - opening hours remastered

[Baby Lee]

Someone on the internet took the first '4' hours of MTV being on-air and did a pretty good job of remastering and cleaning it up and put it up in one big block. Might be a nice relaxing bit of nostalgia for some. Myself I never saw it before, except in little snips from anniversary specials down the years. It's got commercials and everything. And one of the interesting things I had no idea, they apparently simulcast on FM radio because cable didn't carry stereo at the time. So kiddies would watch on TV and listen on the HiFi [with their MTV tuner locator sticker applied to the stereo]

[Jenson71]

My ranking of the first ten songs shown on MTV:

1. Brass in Pockets
2. You Better You Bet
3. Video Killed the Radio Star
4. Time Heals
5. Little Susies on the Run
6. You Better Run
7. We Don’t Talk Anymore
8. Rocking Paradise
9. The first 6 seconds of Take It on the Run
10. The Mountain Dew song

Mentionable: She Won’t Dance With Me

[Deberg_1990]

So we’re there other outlets playing music videos before MTV? How did they have enough music videos to fill airtime? There must have been a ton of repeat videos at the beginning before artists caught on to the phenomenon?

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

So we’re there other outlets playing music videos before MTV? How did they have enough music videos to fill airtime? There must have been a ton of repeat videos at the beginning before artists caught on to the phenomenon?

I'm about as far from an expert anyone my age can be, but I think there were occasional 'specials' and syndicated programming that interspersed videos in their shows [in the vein of Dr. Demento and Austin City Limits], and a lot of MTV's early material was concert footage. And then of course there was the regular filler of music news and commercials. That tided them over until acts were clamoring to provide them hastily assembled content.

[KurtCobain]

This is pretty freaking dope.

[Dartgod]

That's pretty cool, thanks for posting. I'll have to give it a listen while I'm working Monday.

[siberian khatru]

Gonna go rub one out to Martha Quinn

[mdstu]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

So we’re there other outlets playing music videos before MTV? How did they have enough music videos to fill airtime? There must have been a ton of repeat videos at the beginning before artists caught on to the phenomenon?

There were weekly programs that played music videos.

I'd have to google to know all of them, but from my childhood I remember Night Flight and Friday Night Videos.

[DeepPurple]

I remember when I was about 15 or 16 going to the movie theater and watching a full length movie of British Bands playing their hits. Bands like Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas, Gerry & the Pacemakers, the Kinks, many of the bands outside of the Beatles, I guess about 1966. We had already seen Hard Days Night and Help in the theater, so it wasn't a stretch to see videos. On Saturday mornings the Beatles had their cartoon show which always featured new songs. On monday nights the NBC lineup was The Monkees, Laugh In and then Man from Uncle. The Monkees got pretty big from that show.



As far as MTV, I had cable TV in '77 to '79 and then I moved and didn't have cable again until '84, and that's when I saw MTV for the first time. I remember on Saturday nights staying up all night in the 80's and watching Night Flight on USA, it was all music for about 6 hours. A lot cutting edge bands, I remember Bauhaus as one of my favorites on there, as well as Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, REM and stuff like that. It was well made show that was on until the late 80's. I liked it better than MTV because most of the performances were live.

[Deberg_1990]

I definitely remember Night Flight on USA network. They would play all kinds of weird movies.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

So we’re there other outlets playing music videos before MTV? How did they have enough music videos to fill airtime? There must have been a ton of repeat videos at the beginning before artists caught on to the phenomenon?

Lots of bands were making what would be considered music videos in the 60s and 70s that would air on different music variety shows, usually to promote a new album coming out.
I also very vaguely remember one of the basic cable channels would occasionally have hours-long blocks or a weekend where they would just play music videos--this was very late 70s, pre-MTV.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by siberian khatru

Gonna go rub one out to Martha Quinn

DITTO! So HOT back then...

[Stryker]

Was there and witnessed it just like The Beatles on Ed Sullivan Show. Life has been good!

Then MTV turned to SHIT!

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Stryker

DITTO! So HOT back then...

Originally Posted by Stryker

Was there and witnessed it just like The Beatles on Ed Sullivan Show. Life has been good!

Then MTV turned to SHIT!

In this video at about 9:00, Marth Quinn promises that "the music will continue non-stop". But it didn't.

[Deberg_1990]

So this thread made me look up the history of MTV a little bit.

I guess the first 2-3 years the model was ‘Album oriented rock’. they rarely played any black R&B artists until Michael Jackson hit. Then they moved to more of a top 40 format.