The Very First Two Hours Of MTV

YouTube ^ | 08/01/1981

[Drew68]

Someone took the liberty of recording the first two hours of MTV and uploading it to YouTube.

I've thoroughly enjoyed watching it! Of course, the display quality isn't what we've grown used to and there's an occasional glitch in the recording. This was early VHS.

It's everything, old commercials, and bands I've long forgotten or never even remembered.

First five videos:
“Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles.
“You Better Run" by Pat Benatar.
“She Won't Dance With Me" by Rod Stewart.
“You Better You Bet" by The Who.
"Little Suzi's on the Up" by Ph.D

First four commercials:
MTV (of course)
The Bulk school binder
Superman II
Mountain Dew (with only white people, weird)

Anyhow, enjoy!

[Drew68]

Kick back, watch some old videos and remember when MTV was cool.

[Rainbow Rising]

Looking forward to watching this later!

[T.B. Yoits]

"Video Killed The Radio Star"

I heard you on the wireless back in '52
Lying awake intently tuning in on you
If I was young it didn't stop you coming through
Oh-a-oh

They took the credit for your second symphony
Rewritten by machine on new technology
And now I understand the problems you can see

Oh-a-oh
I met your children
Oh-a-oh
What did you tell them?

Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
Pictures came and broke your heart
Oh-a-a-a oh

And now we meet in an abandoned studio
We hear the playback and it seems so long ago
And you remember the jingles used to go:

Oh-a-oh
You were the first one
Oh-a-oh
You were the last one

Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
In my mind and in my car
We can't rewind, we've gone too far
Oh-a-a-a oh
Oh-a-a-a oh

Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
In my mind and in my car
We can't rewind, we've gone too far
Pictures came and broke your heart
Put the blame on VTR...

You are the radio star
You are the radio star
Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
You are the radio star
Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
You are the radio star
Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
You are the radio star
Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star
You are the radio star

Oh-a-oh, oh-a-oh...

[Vermont Lt]

I started working in CATV marketing in 1982. MTV used to give us the best swag. I had several of those satin jackets. We thought so little of that stuff, it was disposable. It would be worth a couple bucks today.

[crusty old prospector]

We didn’t have cable so we would have to go over to a friend’s house to watch.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I never understand, how the cable channels such as MTV, got away from the programming they were set up to show.

MTV was music television. VH1, Video Hits 1, was another music video channel. Ditto CMT, Country Music Television.

And there are many others which have gotten away from the reason for their creation. A&E, Arts and Entertainment channel, never has highbrown arts and entertainment programming. The History Channel seems to have reality shows nowadays. The Learning Channel, TLC, seems to have mostly reality and very little dedicated to education or learning.

The world of cable TV seems to be a jumbled mess, in terms of what programming is found on which channels.

[ifinnegan]

First five videos:

“Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. — Sucked!
“You Better Run” by Pat Benatar. — SuperSucked!
“She Won’t Dance With Me” by Rod Stewart. — super duper Sucked!
“You Better You Bet” by The Who. — Sucked!
“Little Suzi’s on the Up” by Ph.D — No one saw it to even know it sucked.

MTV vile crap. From second one.

[Drew68]

We didn’t have cable so we would have to go over to a friend’s house to watch.

Same here. They only laid cable at first to half of my subdivision so my brother and I would go over to a friend's house every day after school and watch MTV for hours.

[Mr.Unique]

Get off my lawn!

[Steven Scharf]

I lived in lower Manhattan in the early 1980s, but in a college dormitory. My first view of MTV was at a friends house in suburban Kansas City in the summer of 1992.

The heart of the entertainment industry and no MTV (or any other cable).

[Demiurge2]

Anyone remember the filler videos they ran on early MTV — old stock footage with generic rock in the background?

[ifinnegan]

Your response is boring crap, too.

[Fungi]

The Buggles had two albums: The Age of Plastic and Adventures in Modern Recording. Both are classics, not a bad song to be found.
Trevor Horn is a genius.

[ifinnegan]

Was there ever a more boring song?

No, there wasn’t.

[raccoonradio]

Devo got lots of early play as they were among the few to make videos. Comedy-rock
group Blotto, from Albany, were among first to get regular play with I Wanna Be
a Lifeguard.

Music videos existed before but had names like soundies and promotional videos.
Rock artists did the latter and got play on various TV shows.Beatles Hey Jude was
played on David Frost and Cliff Richards shows in UK and Smothers Brothers in US.

It even begins with the Fabs, described by Frost as “the greatest tea room orchestra in the world” jamming on “By George It’s the David Frost Theme” by George Martin.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Tastes obviously vary...but to me that song is just unlistenable. It's almost like a parody that you're supposed to hate.

Then again, I'm not really a fan of pop, and that song is basically as poppy as you can get.

[Tom Tetroxide]

Mike Nesmith, of The Monkees who passed away back on 10DEC2021, invented the concept of MTV and sold the idea

https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/mtv-architect-michael-nesmith/

[Drew68]

I never understand, how the cable channels such as MTV, got away from the programming they were set up to show.

In MTV's case, they basically started out airing entirely free content. The record companies gave them the videos to play for free in the hope they'd sell albums. It worked and everyone was happy.

Eventually, there were more videos than hours in the day to play them and money started changing hands which is called "Payola" or "Pay to Play" and illegal. MTV slowly started to move away from music videos and pioneered Reality Television, another media that costs almost nothing to produce.

A very good book explains it all.

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video

[ifinnegan]

Yeah.

It was a poor novelty song that got chosen for its title in promoting the new entertainment network.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Cable TV came later to some areas than others. I recall living in Chicago in the early 1980s. Nobody in the city of Chicago had cable TV yet, they hadn’t awarded cable franchises yet. But most suburban areas had cable at that time.

I know it’s a different world now, with wireless internet. It’s a step back in time, to think of how they had to lay physical cables and wiring to deliver cable TV not too many years ago.