History Creator / MTV

[[NewMediaAreEvil Like any new trend in popular culture]], it wouldn't be long before MTV was hit with its first criticism from both the left and the right. In its early years, it was ''all white''.[[note]]In its early days, only a handful of black artists were played, on an incidental basis, and were mostly British or Caribbean acts associated with ska and new wave like Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, and Creator/GraceJones, or were part of multi-racial groups like Music/TheSpecials, Thompson Twins, and Music/CultureClub.[[/note]] Music/DavidBowie among others sharply criticized the network [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg during a live 1983 interview]] for not playing videos by black artists. Programming directors attributed this to the fact that they were playing rock[[note]]And uh... on that note, ''who'' created rock and roll?[[/note]], primarily AOR -- "album-oriented" rock[[note]]and [[SarcasmMode of course]] [[Music/LionelRichie there]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Baker weren't]] [[Music/MarvinGaye any]] [[Music/StevieWonder black]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Robinson artists]] doing AOR[[/note]], and that they didn't want to "cater to fringe groups."[[note]] A not so subtle dig at the rising hip-hop scene.[[/note]] Various former [=VJs=] and executives at MTV (including Carolyn Baker, their former head of talent and acquisition, [[OffendingTheCreatorsOwn who was herself black]]) have discussed the causes of this, noting on one hand that the record industry in general was giving black artists short shrift in the early '80s in the wake of the [[DiscoSucks American collapse of disco]][[note]]and coming under heavy fire from the Black Music Association for it[[/note]] (including when it came to funding music videos); but also that MTV, which could have used its influence to rectify the situation, was instead arguably fueling the problem with its reluctance to show videos by non-white artists. In any event, Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}}, with their undeniable cross-racial appeal[[note]]''Salon'' senior writer Andrew Leonard, who had worked as a night club DJ in 1980s Taipei, [[https://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/remembering_michael/ observed]] that certain songs got all the foreigners on the floor, others appealed to Taiwanese women, and so on: but ''Billie Jean'' was the song that you saved for when you needed to rejuvenate a dead night; a magic trick that could instantly transform a cemetery into a rave. As the first sinister notes pumped out of the speakers, you could see ears prick up and bodies tense all over the club, as if a meadow full of grazing deer had suddenly caught the scent of a pack of wolves. Except, instead of fleeing in terror, the mass reaction was to surge onto the dance floor." KHIL's Mark Lucke, in redneck-heavy Willcox, Arizona, [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/radio-silence-how-the-disappearance-of-rural-stations-takes-americas-soul-with-them noted]] that in the local honky-tonk bar, "you have your typical George Strait po-dunky songs, and there are people out there, but it’s boring. No one’s alive. And then all of a sudden, they put on Michael Jackson. And that dance floor was packed, like sardines. And then they went back to po-dunk, and it died."[[/note]] are often credited for laying the first cracks in MTV's color barrier (with CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatening to pull all of the label's videos from MTV if they didn't show Michael). By 1984, videos by black artists were in regular rotation on the network. In 1985, meanwhile, the HardcorePunk band Music/DeadKennedys released their classic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCPNMZuWwI "MTV Get Off the Air",]] attacking the young network for devaluing the importance of music and for being a corporate shill. Feminists criticized the channel's videos for [[MaleGaze their sexualized depiction of women]] as misogynistic, especially at the height of the HairMetal and later GlamRap booms. From the other direction, MTV's also long been a favorite whipping boy for conservative MoralGuardians, who have long felt it to be a den of {{filth}}, dangerous behavior, left-wing activism, and {{PoliticalOvercorrectness}}, leading MTV to adopt a strict policy prohibiting videos with Satanic or anti-religious themes. Of course, [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity none of this did anything to hurt the network's popularity]] -- famously, UsefulNotes/BillClinton's appearances on MTV provided a huge boost to his youth support during his Presidential campaign in 1992.

* ''Series/{{Scream|TVSeries}}'' (2015-16; moved to Creator/VH1 for its third season)

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Music/DireStraits I want my,]] [[Music/BrothersInArmsAlbum I want my,]] [[Music/{{Sting}} I want my MTV!]]]]

[[NewMediaAreEvil Like any new trend in popular culture]], it wouldn't be long before MTV was hit with its first criticism from both the left and the right. In its early years, it was ''all white''.[[note]]In its early days, only a handful of black artists were played, on an incidental basis, and were mostly British or Caribbean acts associated with ska and new wave like Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, and Creator/GraceJones, or were part of multi-racial groups like Music/TheSpecials, Thompson Twins, and Music/CultureClub.[[/note]] Music/DavidBowie among others sharply criticized the network [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg during a live 1983 interview]] for not playing videos by black artists. Programming directors attributed this to the fact that they were playing rock[[note]]And uh... on that note, ''who'' created rock and roll?[[/note]], primarily AOR -- "album-oriented" rock[[note]]and [[SarcasmMode of course]] [[Music/LionelRichie there]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Baker weren't]] [[Music/MarvinGaye any]] [[Music/StevieWonder black]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Robinson artists]] doing AOR[[/note]], and that they didn't want to "cater to fringe groups."[[note]] A not so subtle dig at the rising hip-hop scene.[[/note]] Various former [=VJs=] and executives at MTV (including Carolyn Baker, their former head of talent and acquisition, [[OffendingTheCreatorsOwn who was herself black]]) have discussed the causes of this, noting on one hand that the record industry in general was giving black artists short shrift in the early '80s in the wake of the [[DiscoSucks American collapse of disco]][[note]]and coming under heavy fire from the Black Music Association for it[[/note]] (including when it came to funding music videos); but also that MTV, which could have used its influence to rectify the situation, was instead arguably fueling the problem with its reluctance to show videos by non-white artists. In any event, Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}}, with their undeniable cross-racial appeal[[note]]''Salon'' senior writer Andrew Leonard, who had worked as a night club DJ in 1980s Taipei, [[https://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/remembering_michael/ observed]] that certain songs got all the foreigners on the floor, others appealed to Taiwanese women, and so on: but "'Billie Jean' was the song that you saved for when you needed to rejuvenate a dead night; a magic trick that could instantly transform a cemetery into a rave. As the first sinister notes pumped out of the speakers, you could see ears prick up and bodies tense all over the club, as if a meadow full of grazing deer had suddenly caught the scent of a pack of wolves. Except, instead of fleeing in terror, the mass reaction was to surge onto the dance floor." KHIL's Mark Lucke, in redneck-heavy Willcox, Arizona, [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/radio-silence-how-the-disappearance-of-rural-stations-takes-americas-soul-with-them noted]] that in the local honky-tonk bar, "you have your typical George Strait po-dunky songs, and there are people out there, but it’s boring. No one’s alive. And then all of a sudden, they put on Michael Jackson. And that dance floor was packed, like sardines. And then they went back to po-dunk, and it died."[[/note]] are often credited for laying the first cracks in MTV's color barrier (with CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatening to pull all of the label's videos from MTV if they didn't show Michael). By 1984, videos by black artists were in regular rotation on the network. In 1985, meanwhile, the HardcorePunk band Music/DeadKennedys released their classic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCPNMZuWwI "MTV Get Off the Air",]] attacking the young network for devaluing the importance of music and for being a corporate shill. Feminists criticized the channel's videos for [[MaleGaze their sexualized depiction of women]] as misogynistic, especially at the height of the HairMetal and later GlamRap booms. From the other direction, MTV's also long been a favorite whipping boy for conservative MoralGuardians, who have long felt it to be a den of {{filth}}, dangerous behavior, left-wing activism, and {{PoliticalOvercorrectness}}, leading MTV to adopt a strict policy prohibiting videos with Satanic or anti-religious themes. Of course, [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity none of this did anything to hurt the network's popularity]] -- famously, UsefulNotes/BillClinton's appearances on MTV provided a huge boost to his youth support during his Presidential campaign in 1992.

[[NewMediaAreEvil Like any new trend in popular culture]], it wouldn't be long before MTV was hit with its first criticism from both the left and the right. In its early years, it was ''all white''.[[note]]In its early days, only a handful of black artists were played, on an incidental basis, and were mostly British or Caribbean acts associated with ska and new wave like Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, and Creator/GraceJones, or were part of multi-racial groups like Music/TheSpecials, Thompson Twins, and Music/CultureClub.[[/note]] Music/DavidBowie among others sharply criticized the network [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg during a live 1983 interview]] for not playing videos by black artists. Programming directors attributed this to the fact that they were playing rock[[note]]And uh... on that note, ''who'' created rock and roll?[[/note]], primarily AOR -- "album-oriented" rock[[note]]and [[SarcasmMode of course]] [[Music/LionelRichie there]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Baker weren't]] [[Music/MarvinGaye any]] [[Music/StevieWonder black]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Robinson artists]] doing AOR[[/note]], and that they didn't want to "cater to fringe groups."[[note]] A not so subtle dig at the rising hip-hop scene.[[/note]] Various former [=VJs=] and executives at MTV (including Carolyn Baker, their former head of talent and acquisition, [[OffendingTheCreatorsOwn who was herself black]]) have discussed the causes of this, noting on one hand that the record industry in general was giving black artists short shrift in the early '80s in the wake of the [[DiscoSucks American collapse of disco]][[note]]and coming under heavy fire from the Black Music Association for it[[/note]] (including when it came to funding music videos); but also that MTV, which could have used its influence to rectify the situation, was instead arguably fueling the problem with its reluctance to show videos by non-white artists. In any event, Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}}, with their undeniable cross-racial appeal[[note]]''Salon'' senior writer Andrew Leonard, who had worked as a night club DJ in 1980s Taipei, [[https://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/remembering_michael/ observed]] that certain songs got all the foreigners on the floor, others appealed to Taiwanese women, and so on: but "'Billie Jean' was the song that you saved for when you needed to rejuvenate a dead night; a magic trick that could instantly transform a cemetery into a rave. As the first sinister notes pumped out of the speakers, you could see ears prick up and bodies tense all over the club, as if a meadow full of grazing deer had suddenly caught the scent of a pack of wolves. Except, instead of fleeing in terror, the mass reaction was to surge onto the dance floor." KHIL's Mark Lucke, in redneck-heavy Willcox, Arizona, [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/radio-silence-how-the-disappearance-of-rural-stations-takes-americas-soul-with-them noted]] that in the local honky-tonk bar, "you have your typical George Strait po-dunky songs, and there are people out there, but it’s boring. No one’s alive. And then all of a sudden, they put on Michael Jackson. And that dance floor was packed, like sardines. And then they went back to po-dunk, and it died."[[/note]] are often credited for laying the first cracks in MTV's color barrier (with CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatening to pull all of the label's videos from MTV if they didn't show Michael). By 1984, videos by black artists were in regular rotation on the network. In 1985, meanwhile, the HardcorePunk band Music/DeadKennedys released their classic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCPNMZuWwI "MTV Get Off the Air",]] attacking the young network for devaluing the importance of music and for being a corporate shill. Feminists criticized the channel's videos for [[MaleGaze their sexualized depiction of women]], especially at the height of the HairMetal and later GlamRap booms. From the other direction, MTV's also long been a favorite whipping boy for conservative MoralGuardians, who have long felt it to be a den of {{filth}}, dangerous behavior, left-wing activism, and {{PoliticalOvercorrectness}}, leading MTV to adopt a strict policy prohibiting videos with Satanic or anti-religious themes. Of course, [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity none of this did anything to hurt the network's popularity]] -- famously, UsefulNotes/BillClinton's appearances on MTV provided a huge boost to his youth support during his Presidential campaign in 1992.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Music/DireStraits I want my, I want my, I want my MTV!]]]]

On August 1, 1981, at 12:01 AM, pop culture was changed forever by a new cable network that introduced a brand new idea -- a TV channel that played {{music videos}}, 24/7. That network was MTV. Ironically, the first video they ever showed was "Music/VideoKilledTheRadioStar" ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r-tXRLazs link]]) by Music/TheBuggles.

The results were fantastic. In TheEighties, ''Music Television'' was the iTunes, Website/YouTube, ''and'' Spotify of the day, a revolution in pop culture and how music was enjoyed. Countless bands and artists (Music/{{Madonna}}, Music/MichaelJackson, Music/DuranDuran, Music/CyndiLauper, Music/RickAstley, and just about every HairMetal band) saw their careers [[ColbertBump launched or furthered]] because of the heavy video rotation of some of their songs. If they were popular in the '80s, they were on MTV. Later in the decade, the network would also receive acclaim for devoting time to bands that played what was then called "[[CollegeRadio college rock]]" (now known as AlternativeRock) on their ''120 Minutes'' series, as well as HeavyMetal on ''Series/HeadbangersBall'' and [[HipHop hip-hop/rap]] on ''Yo! MTV Raps''. While image, style, and appearance were important parts of the music world long before MTV (just look at Music/DavidBowie, Music/TheBeatles, or even Music/ElvisPresley), the network's rise elevated those things into an art form almost on par with the music itself.

[[NewMediaAreEvil Like any new trend in popular culture]], it wouldn't be long before MTV was hit with its first criticism from both the left and the right. In its early years, it was ''all white''.[[note]]In its early days, only a handful of black artists were played, on an incidental basis, and were mostly British or Caribbean acts associated with ska and new wave like Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, and Creator/GraceJones, or were part of multi-racial groups like Music/TheSpecials, Thompson Twins, and Music/CultureClub.[[/note]] Music/DavidBowie among others sharply criticized the network [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg during a live 1983 interview]] for not playing videos by black artists. Programming directors attributed this to the fact that they were playing rock[[note]]And uh... on that note, ''who'' created rock and roll?[[/note]], primarily AOR -- "album-oriented" rock[[note]]and [[SarcasmMode of course]] [[Music/LionelRichie there]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Baker weren't]] [[Music/MarvinGaye any]] [[Music/StevieWonder black]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Robinson artists]] doing AOR[[/note]], and that they didn't want to "cater to fringe groups."[[note]] A not so subtle dig at the rising hip-hop scene.[[/note]] Various former [=VJs=] and executives at MTV (including Carolyn Baker, their former head of talent and acquisition, [[OffendingTheCreatorsOwn who was herself black]]) have discussed the causes of this, noting on one hand that the record industry in general was giving black artists short shrift in the early '80s in the wake of the [[DiscoSucks American collapse of disco]][[note]]and coming under heavy fire from the Black Music Association for it[[/note]] (including when it came to funding music videos); but also that MTV, which could have used its influence to rectify the situation, was instead arguably fueling the problem with its reluctance to show videos by non-white artists. In any event, Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}}, with their undeniable cross-racial appeal[[note]]''Salon'' senior writer Andrew Leonard, who had worked as a night club DJ in 1980s Taipei, [[https://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/remembering_michael/ observed]] that certain songs got all the foreigners on the floor, others appealed to Taiwanese women, and so on: but "'Billie Jean' was the song that you saved for when you needed to rejuvenate a dead night; a magic trick that could instantly transform a cemetery into a rave. As the first sinister notes pumped out of the speakers, you could see ears prick up and bodies tense all over the club, as if a meadow full of grazing deer had suddenly caught the scent of a pack of wolves. Except, instead of fleeing in terror, the mass reaction was to surge onto the dance floor." KHIL's Mark Lucke, in redneck-heavy Willcox, Arizona, [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/radio-silence-how-the-disappearance-of-rural-stations-takes-americas-soul-with-them noted]] that in the local honky-tonk bar, "you have your typical George Strait po-dunky songs, and there are people out there, but it’s boring. No one’s alive. And then all of a sudden, they put on Michael Jackson. And that dance floor was packed, like sardines. And then they went back to po-dunk, and it died."[[/note]] are often credited for laying the first cracks in MTV's color barrier (with CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatening to pull all of the label's videos from MTV if they didn't show Michael). By 1984, videos by black artists were in regular rotation on the network. In 1985, meanwhile, the HardcorePunk band Music/DeadKennedys released their classic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCPNMZuWwI "MTV Get Off the Air",]] attacking the young network for devaluing the importance of music and for being a corporate shill. Feminists criticized the channel's videos for [[MaleGaze their sexualized depiction of women]], especially at the height of the HairMetal and later GlamRap booms. From the other direction, MTV's also long been a favorite whipping boy for conservative MoralGuardians, who have long felt it to be a den of {{filth}}, dangerous behavior, left-wing activism, and {{political correctness|GoneMad}}, leading MTV to adopt a strict policy prohibiting videos with Satanic or anti-religious themes. Of course, [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity none of this did anything to hurt the network's popularity]] -- famously, UsefulNotes/BillClinton's appearances on MTV provided a huge boost to his youth support during his Presidential campaign in 1992.

The results were fantastic. In TheEighties, MTV was the iTunes, Website/YouTube, ''and'' Spotify of the day, a revolution in pop culture and how music was enjoyed. Countless bands and artists (Music/{{Madonna}}, Music/MichaelJackson, Music/DuranDuran, Music/CyndiLauper, Music/RickAstley, and just about every HairMetal band) saw their careers [[ColbertBump launched or furthered]] because of the heavy video rotation of some of their songs. If they were popular in the '80s, they were on MTV. Later in the decade, the network would also receive acclaim for devoting time to bands that played what was then called "[[CollegeRadio college rock]]" (now known as AlternativeRock) on their ''120 Minutes'' series, as well as HeavyMetal on ''Series/HeadbangersBall'' and [[HipHop hip-hop/rap]] on ''Yo! MTV Raps''. While image, style, and appearance were important parts of the music world long before MTV (just look at Music/DavidBowie, Music/TheBeatles, or even Music/ElvisPresley), the network's rise elevated those things into an art form almost on par with the music itself.

In TheNineties, MTV started bringing HipHop acts into regular rotation, and the {{grunge}} and AlternativeRock that had been popularized on ''120 Minutes'' started displacing HairMetal. Later in the decade, MTV was instrumental in the rise of BoyBand[=s=], GirlGroup[=s=], and IdolSinger[=s=] like Music/BritneySpears, Music/ChristinaAguilera, Music/{{TLC}}, Music/DestinysChild, the Music/BackstreetBoys, and Music/{{NSYNC}}, which themselves partly displaced rock music. Music/{{Eminem}}, brought into the fold as a SubvertedKidsShow version of a TeenIdol, [[SitcomArchNemesis beefed with]] the TeenPop acts mentioned above while fusing HardcoreHipHop and BubblegumPop in his music and videos, and rode a [[TheNewRockAndRoll moral panic]] that [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity secured hip-hop's cultural dominance]] in TheTurnOfTheMillennium. Grunge pressed on into PostGrunge, with Music/{{Nickelback}} and Music/{{Creed}} leading the way, and NuMetal bands like Music/LinkinPark, Music/{{Korn}}, and Music/{{Slipknot}} emerged to bring a harder sound into the mainstream -- and act as [[GatewaySeries Gateway Music]] to a whole generation of metalheads [[OldShame no matter how loath]] they are to admit it. The music videos became more professional, having evolved from marketing tools to encourage album sales into the main attraction; price tags of over a million dollars for short films just three or four minutes long were not unheard of. ''Total Request Live'', or ''TRL'', a program where viewers got to call in and vote for their favorite music videos to air, became a sensation, turning host Carson Daly into a celebrity in his own right. It was with the launch of this show that MTV opened its famous studio in [[BigApplesauce Times Square]].

In TheNineties, MTV started bringing HipHop acts into regular rotation, and the {{grunge}} and AlternativeRock that had been popularized on ''120 Minutes'' started displacing HairMetal. Later in the decade, MTV was instrumental in the rise of BoyBand[=s=], GirlGroup[=s=], and IdolSinger[=s=] like Music/BritneySpears, Music/ChristinaAguilera, Music/{{TLC}}, Music/DestinysChild, the Music/BackstreetBoys, and Music/{{NSYNC}}, which themselves partly displaced rock music. Grunge pressed on into PostGrunge, with Music/{{Nickelback}} and Music/{{Creed}} leading the way, and NuMetal bands like Music/LinkinPark, Music/{{Korn}}, and Music/{{Slipknot}} emerged to bring a harder sound into the mainstream -- and act as [[GatewaySeries Gateway Music]] to a whole generation of metalheads [[OldShame no matter how loath]] they are to admit it. The music videos became more professional, having evolved from marketing tools to encourage album sales into the main attraction; price tags of over a million dollars for short films just three or four minutes long were not unheard of. ''Total Request Live'', or ''TRL'', a program where viewers got to call in and vote for their favorite music videos to air, became a sensation, turning host Carson Daly into a celebrity in his own right. It was with the launch of this show that MTV opened its famous studio in [[BigApplesauce Times Square]].

Today, the main MTV network has all but abandoned playing music outside of special occasions like the [[UsefulNotes/MTVVideoMusicAward Video Music Awards]].[[note]] As of December 5, 2016, the network no longer airs music video blocks, with videos now being seen during commercial breaks, video premieres, and special occasions; For instance, the death of Music/{{Prince}} in April 2016 saw the channel pre-empt its afternoon programming to devote several hours worth of airtime to playing his videos.[[/note]] Even [=MTV2=], which used to play only a few hours of music a day in the early morning hours, eventually dropped its video blocks in November 2017. Despite music videos being the first to film consistently in the format, they didn't even air any videos in UsefulNotes/HighDefinition until August 2012, long after rival network Fuse (which was created partly in response to MTV's decay) had converted to HD. The kids of the "MTV Generation" have grown up to have kids of their own, the network's popularity amongst music fans has faded a great deal since its heyday in the '80s and '90s, the aforementioned rise of online music services, and the current erosion of cable ratings across the television landscape doesn't help the network's case either. To further underscore this, the channel's milestone 40th anniversary on August 1, 2021 wasn't even celebrated on the channel or social media outlets, the channel aired an all-day marathon of ''Series/{{Ridiculousness}}'', [[AdoredByTheNetwork as per usual]]. The 40th anniversary was acknowledged and celebrated properly during the 2021 Video Music Awards, a month later.

The results were fantastic. In TheEighties, MTV was the iTunes, Website/YouTube, ''and'' Spotify of the day, a revolution in pop culture and how music was enjoyed. Countless bands and artists (Music/{{Madonna}}, Music/MichaelJackson, Music/DuranDuran, Music/CyndiLauper, Music/RickAstley, and just about every HairMetal band) saw their careers [[ColbertBump launched or furthered]] because of the heavy video rotation of some of their songs. If they were popular in the '80s, they were on MTV. Later in the decade, the network would also receive acclaim for devoting time to bands that played what was then called "[[CollegeRadio college rock]]" (now known as AlternativeRock) on their ''120 Minutes'' series, as well as HeavyMetal on ''Series/HeadbangersBall'' and [[HipHop hip-hop/rap]] on ''Yo! MTV Raps''. While image, style, and appearance were important parts of the music world long before MTV (just look at Music/DavidBowie, Music/TheBeatles, or even Music/ElvisPresley,) the network's rise elevated those things into an art form almost on par with the music itself.

One unexpected result of MTV's success was the rise of [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} British]] pop and rock groups in UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates. Music videos had caught on in Britain back in [[TheSeventies the mid '70s]] thanks to shows like ''Series/TopOfThePops'', giving that country a much higher music video output than the US in MTV's formative years. Most American videos in the early '80s, by contrast, were videotaped concert performances. As MTV was desperate for any music videos it could get its hands on, it threw many of those British vids on the air to fill airtime, leading to what has been called a second [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishInvasion British Invasion]] as bands saw themselves developing [[{{Squee}} screaming]] [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff American fanbases]] virtually overnight. The network also began to expand to content other than music videos, shows and concerts when it began airing reruns of the sitcoms ''Series/TheMonkees'' and ''Series/TheYoungOnes'', both of which had a musical element.

* ''Series/TheAndyMilonakisShow'' (2005-07; season 1 was aired on MTV while the rest was aired on [=MTV2=])

** ''Series/{{Wildboyz}}'' (2003-04; moved to [=MTV2=] for an additional two seasons)

* ''Series/TheAndyMilonakisShow'' (2005; moved to [=MTV2=] for an additional two seasons)

* ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'' (1998-2002; moved to [=MTV2=] for an additional two seasons)

* ''Series/HeadbangersBall'' (1987-95; a revival was aired on [=MTV2=] from 2003 to 2012)

* [=MTV2=]: Initially focused on music videos, then became fixated on AlternativeRock and HipHop. [=MTV2=] now serves primarily as a sitcom repeat farm, with a particular focus on black sitcoms aimed at young adult men. The network also airs encores of [=MTV=] programming and formally produced a small amount of original programming.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mtv_new_official_logo_2021.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:[[Music/DireStraits I want my, I want my, I want my MTV!]]]]

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mtv_2021.png]]

-->-- The very first lines ever spoken on MTV.

While there are still a vocal minority of music fans holding out for the day that the "M" in MTV can become meaningful again, to deny that the network has fundamentally shaped popular culture into what it is now would be impossible.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mtv_color_logo.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[Music/DireStraits I want my, I want my, I want my MTV!]]]]

Today, the main MTV network has all but abandoned playing music outside of special occasions like the [[UsefulNotes/MTVVideoMusicAward Video Music Awards]].[[note]] As of December 5, 2016, the network no longer airs music video blocks, with videos now being seen during commercial breaks, video premieres, and special occasions; For instance, the death of Music/{{Prince}} in April 2016 saw the channel pre-empt its afternoon programming to devote several hours worth of airtime to playing his videos.[[/note]] Even [=MTV2=], which used to play only a few hours of music a day in the early morning hours, eventually dropped its video blocks in November 2017. Despite music videos being the first to film consistently in the format, they didn't even air any videos in UsefulNotes/HighDefinition until August 2012, long after rival network Fuse (which was created partly in response to MTV's decay) had converted to HD. The kids of the "MTV Generation" have grown up to have kids of their own, the network's popularity amongst music fans has faded a great deal since its heyday in the '80s and '90s, the aforementioned rise of online music services, and the current erosion of cable ratings across the television landscape doesn't help the network's case either. To further underscore this, the channel's milestone 40th anniversary on August 1, 2021 wasn't even celebrated on the channel or social media outlets, the channel aired an all-day marathon of ''Series/{{Ridiculousness}}'', [[AdoredByTheNetwork as per usual]].

[[NewMediaAreEvil Like any new trend in popular culture]], it wouldn't be long before MTV was hit with its first criticism from both the left and the right. In its early years, it was ''all white''.[[note]]In its early days, only a handful of black artists were played, on an incidental basis, and were mostly British or Caribbean acts associated with ska and new wave like Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, and Creator/GraceJones, or were part of multi-racial groups like Music/TheSpecials, Thompson Twins, and Music/CultureClub.[[/note]] Music/DavidBowie among others sharply criticized the network [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg during a live 1983 interview]] for not playing videos by black artists. Programming directors attributed this to the fact that they were playing rock[[note]]And uh... on that note, ''who'' created rock and roll?[[/note]], primarily AOR -- "album-oriented" rock[[note]]and [[SarcasmMode of course]] [[Music/LionelRichie there]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Baker weren't]] [[Music/MarvinGaye any]] [[Music/StevieWonder black]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Robinson artists]] doing AOR[[/note]], and that they didn't want to "cater to fringe groups."[[note]] A not so subtle dig at the rising hip-hop scene.[[/note]] Various former [=VJs=] and executives at MTV (including Carolyn Baker, their former head of talent and acquisition, [[OffendingTheCreatorsOwn who was herself black]]) have discussed the causes of this, noting on one hand that the record industry in general was giving black artists short shrift in the '80s[[note]]and coming under heavy fire from the Black Music Association for it[[/note]] (including when it came to funding music videos); but also that MTV, which could have used its influence to rectify the situation, was instead arguably fueling the problem with its reluctance to show videos by non-white artists. In any event, Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}}, with their undeniable cross-racial appeal[[note]]''Salon'' senior writer Andrew Leonard, who had worked as a night club DJ in 1980s Taipei, [[https://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/remembering_michael/ observed]] that certain songs got all the foreigners on the floor, others appealed to Taiwanese women, and so on: but "'Billie Jean' was the song that you saved for when you needed to rejuvenate a dead night; a magic trick that could instantly transform a cemetery into a rave. As the first sinister notes pumped out of the speakers, you could see ears prick up and bodies tense all over the club, as if a meadow full of grazing deer had suddenly caught the scent of a pack of wolves. Except, instead of fleeing in terror, the mass reaction was to surge onto the dance floor." KHIL's Mark Lucke, in redneck-heavy Willcox, Arizona, [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/radio-silence-how-the-disappearance-of-rural-stations-takes-americas-soul-with-them noted]] that in the local honky-tonk bar, "you have your typical George Strait po-dunky songs, and there are people out there, but it’s boring. No one’s alive. And then all of a sudden, they put on Michael Jackson. And that dance floor was packed, like sardines. And then they went back to po-dunk, and it died."[[/note]] are often credited for laying the first cracks in MTV's color barrier (with CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatening to pull all of the label's videos from MTV if they didn't show Michael). By 1984, videos by black artists were in regular rotation on the network. In 1985, meanwhile, the HardcorePunk band Music/DeadKennedys released their classic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCPNMZuWwI "MTV Get Off the Air",]] attacking the young network for devaluing the importance of music and for being a corporate shill. Feminists criticized the channel's videos for [[MaleGaze their sexualized depiction of women]], especially at the height of the HairMetal and later GlamRap booms. From the other direction, MTV's also long been a favorite whipping boy for conservative MoralGuardians, who have long felt it to be a den of {{filth}}, dangerous behavior, left-wing activism, and {{political correctness|GoneMad}}, leading MTV to adopt a strict policy prohibiting videos with Satanic or anti-religious themes. Of course, [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity none of this did anything to hurt the network's popularity]] -- famously, UsefulNotes/BillClinton's appearances on MTV provided a huge boost to his youth support during his Presidential campaign in 1992.

On August 1, 1981, at 12:01 AM, pop culture was changed forever by a new cable network that introduced a brand new idea -- a TV channel that played [[MusicVideoTropes music videos]], 24/7. That network was MTV. Ironically, the first video they ever showed was "Music/VideoKilledTheRadioStar" ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8r-tXRLazs link]]) by Music/TheBuggles.

[[NewMediaAreEvil Like any new trend in popular culture]], it wouldn't be long before MTV was hit with its first criticism from both the left and the right. In its early years, it was ''all white.''[[note]]In its early days, only a handful of Black artists were played, on an incidental basis, and were mostly British or Caribbean acts associated with ska and new wave like Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, and Creator/GraceJones, or were part of multi-racial groups like Music/TheSpecials, Thompson Twins, and Music/CultureClub.[[/note]] Music/DavidBowie among others sharply criticized the network [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg during a live 1983 interview]] for not playing videos by black artists. Programming directors attributed this to the fact that they were playing rock[[note]]And uh... on that note, ''who'' created rock and roll?[[/note]], primarily AOR -- "album-oriented" rock[[note]]and [[SarcasmMode of course]] [[Music/LionelRichie there]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Baker weren't]] [[Music/MarvinGaye any]] [[Music/StevieWonder black]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Robinson artists]] doing AOR[[/note]], and that they didn't want to "cater to fringe groups."[[note]] A not so subtle dig at the rising hip-hop scene.[[/note]] Various former [=VJs=] and executives at MTV (including Carolyn Baker, their former head of talent and acquisition who was herself black) have discussed the causes of this, noting on one hand that the record industry in general was giving black artists short shrift in the '80s[[note]]and coming under heavy fire from the Black Music Association for it[[/note]] (including when it came to funding music videos); but also that MTV, which could have used its influence to rectify the situation, was instead arguably fueling the problem with its reluctance to show videos by non-white artists. In any event, Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}}, with their undeniable cross-racial appeal[[note]]''Salon'' senior writer Andrew Leonard, who had worked as a night club DJ in 1980s Taipei, [[https://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/remembering_michael/ observed]] that certain songs got all the foreigners on the floor, others appealed to Taiwanese women, and so on: but "'Billie Jean' was the song that you saved for when you needed to rejuvenate a dead night; a magic trick that could instantly transform a cemetery into a rave. As the first sinister notes pumped out of the speakers, you could see ears prick up and bodies tense all over the club, as if a meadow full of grazing deer had suddenly caught the scent of a pack of wolves. Except, instead of fleeing in terror, the mass reaction was to surge onto the dance floor." KHIL's Mark Lucke, in redneck-heavy Willcox, Arizona, [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/radio-silence-how-the-disappearance-of-rural-stations-takes-americas-soul-with-them noted]] that in the local honky-tonk bar, "you have your typical George Strait po-dunky songs, and there are people out there, but it’s boring. No one’s alive. And then all of a sudden, they put on Michael Jackson. And that dance floor was packed, like sardines. And then they went back to po-dunk, and it died."[[/note]] are often credited for laying the first cracks in MTV's color barrier (with CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatening to pull all of the label's videos from MTV if they didn't show Michael). By 1984, videos by black artists were in regular rotation on the network. In 1985, meanwhile, the HardcorePunk band Music/DeadKennedys released their classic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCPNMZuWwI "MTV Get Off the Air",]] attacking the young network for devaluing the importance of music and for being a corporate shill. Feminists criticized the channel's videos for [[MaleGaze their sexualized depiction of women]], especially at the height of the HairMetal and later GlamRap booms. From the other direction, MTV's also long been a favorite whipping boy for conservative MoralGuardians, who have long felt it to be a den of {{filth}}, dangerous behavior, left-wing activism, and {{political correctness|GoneMad}}, leading MTV to adopt a strict policy prohibiting videos with Satanic or anti-religious themes. Of course, [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity none of this did anything to hurt the network's popularity]] -- famously, UsefulNotes/BillClinton's appearances on MTV provided a huge boost to his youth support during his Presidential campaign in 1992.

Today, the main MTV network has all but abandoned playing music outside of special occasions like the [[UsefulNotes/MTVVideoMusicAward Video Music Awards]].[[note]] As of December 5, 2016, the network no longer airs music video blocks, with videos now being seen during commercial breaks, video premieres, and special occasions; For instance, the death of Music/{{Prince}} in April 2016 saw the channel pre-empt its afternoon programming to devote several hours worth of airtime to playing his videos.[[/note]] Even [=MTV2=], which used to play only a few hours of music a day in the early morning hours, eventually dropped its video blocks in November 2017. Despite music videos being the first to film consistently in the format, they didn't even air any videos in UsefulNotes/HighDefinition until August 2012, long after rival network Fuse (which was created partly in response to MTV's decay) had converted to HD. The kids of the "MTV Generation" have grown up to have kids of their own, the network's popularity amongst music fans has faded a great deal since its heyday in the '80s and '90s, the aforementioned rise of online music services, and the current erosion of cable ratings across the television landscape doesn't help the network's case either.

[[NewMediaAreEvil Like any new trend in popular culture]], it wouldn't be long before MTV was hit with its first criticism from both the left and the right. In its early years, it was ''all white.''[[note]]In its early days, only a handful of Black artists were played, on an incidental basis, and were mostly British or Caribbean acts associated with ska and new wave like Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, and Creator/GraceJones, or were part of multi-racial groups like Music/TheSpecials, Thompson Twins, and Music/CultureClub.[[/note]] Music/DavidBowie among others sharply criticized the network [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg during a live 1983 interview]] for not playing videos by black artists. Programming directors attributed this to the fact that they were playing rock[[note]]And uh... remind me, ''who'' created rock and roll?[[/note]], primarily AOR -- "album-oriented" rock[[note]]and [[SarcasmMode of course]] [[Music/LionelRichie there]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Baker weren't]] [[Music/MarvinGaye any]] [[Music/StevieWonder black]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Robinson artists]] doing AOR[[/note]], and that they didn't want to "cater to fringe groups."[[note]] A not so subtle dig at the rising hip-hop scene.[[/note]] Various former [=VJs=] and executives at MTV (including Carolyn Baker, their former head of talent and acquisition who was herself black) have discussed the causes of this, noting on one hand that the record industry in general was giving black artists short shrift in the '80s[[note]]and coming under heavy fire from the Black Music Association for it[[/note]] (including when it came to funding music videos); but also that MTV, which could have used its influence to rectify the situation, was instead arguably fueling the problem with its reluctance to show videos by non-white artists. In any event, Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}}, with their undeniable cross-racial appeal[[note]]''Salon'' senior writer Andrew Leonard, who had worked as a night club DJ in 1980s Taipei, [[https://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/remembering_michael/ observed]] that certain songs got all the foreigners on the floor, others appealed to Taiwanese women, and so on: but "'Billie Jean' was the song that you saved for when you needed to rejuvenate a dead night; a magic trick that could instantly transform a cemetery into a rave. As the first sinister notes pumped out of the speakers, you could see ears prick up and bodies tense all over the club, as if a meadow full of grazing deer had suddenly caught the scent of a pack of wolves. Except, instead of fleeing in terror, the mass reaction was to surge onto the dance floor." KHIL's Mark Lucke, in redneck-heavy Willcox, Arizona, [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/radio-silence-how-the-disappearance-of-rural-stations-takes-americas-soul-with-them noted]] that in the local honky-tonk bar, "you have your typical George Strait po-dunky songs, and there are people out there, but it’s boring. No one’s alive. And then all of a sudden, they put on Michael Jackson. And that dance floor was packed, like sardines. And then they went back to po-dunk, and it died."[[/note]] are often credited for laying the first cracks in MTV's color barrier (with CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatening to pull all of the label's videos from MTV if they didn't show Michael). By 1984, videos by black artists were in regular rotation on the network. In 1985, meanwhile, the HardcorePunk band Music/DeadKennedys released their classic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCPNMZuWwI "MTV Get Off the Air",]] attacking the young network for devaluing the importance of music and for being a corporate shill. Feminists criticized the channel's videos for [[MaleGaze their sexualized depiction of women]], especially at the height of the HairMetal and later GlamRap booms. From the other direction, MTV's also long been a favorite whipping boy for conservative MoralGuardians, who have long felt it to be a den of {{filth}}, dangerous behavior, left-wing activism, and {{political correctness|GoneMad}}, leading MTV to adopt a strict policy prohibiting videos with Satanic or anti-religious themes. Of course, [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity none of this did anything to hurt the network's popularity]] -- famously, UsefulNotes/BillClinton's appearances on MTV provided a huge boost to his youth support during his Presidential campaign in 1992.

[[NewMediaAreEvil Like any new trend in popular culture]], it wouldn't be long before MTV was hit with its first criticism from both the left and the right. In its early years, it was ''all white.''[[note]]In its early days, only a handful of Black artists were played, on an incidental basis, and were mostly British or Caribbean acts associated with ska and new wave like Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, Creator/GraceJones, or were part of multi-racial groups like Music/TheSpecials, Thompson Twins, and Music/CultureClub.[[/note]] Music/DavidBowie among others sharply criticized the network [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg during a live 1983 interview]] for not playing videos by black artists. Programming directors attributed this to the fact that they were playing rock[[note]]And uh... remind me, ''who'' created rock and roll?[[/note]], primarily AOR -- "album-oriented" rock[[note]]and [[SarcasmMode of course]] [[Music/LionelRichie there]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Baker weren't]] [[Music/MarvinGaye any]] [[Music/StevieWonder black]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Robinson artists]] doing AOR[[/note]], and that they didn't want to "cater to fringe groups."[[note]] A not so subtle dig at the rising hip-hop scene.[[/note]] Various former [=VJs=] and executives at MTV (including Carolyn Baker, their former head of talent and acquisition who was herself black) have discussed the causes of this, noting on one hand that the record industry in general was giving black artists short shrift in the '80s[[note]]and coming under heavy fire from the Black Music Association for it[[/note]] (including when it came to funding music videos); but also that MTV, which could have used its influence to rectify the situation, was instead arguably fueling the problem with its reluctance to show videos by non-white artists. In any event, Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Prince}}, with their undeniable cross-racial appeal[[note]]''Salon'' senior writer Andrew Leonard, who had worked as a night club DJ in 1980s Taipei, [[https://www.salon.com/2009/06/26/remembering_michael/ observed]] that certain songs got all the foreigners on the floor, others appealed to Taiwanese women, and so on: but "'Billie Jean' was the song that you saved for when you needed to rejuvenate a dead night; a magic trick that could instantly transform a cemetery into a rave. As the first sinister notes pumped out of the speakers, you could see ears prick up and bodies tense all over the club, as if a meadow full of grazing deer had suddenly caught the scent of a pack of wolves. Except, instead of fleeing in terror, the mass reaction was to surge onto the dance floor." KHIL's Mark Lucke, in redneck-heavy Willcox, Arizona, [[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/06/radio-silence-how-the-disappearance-of-rural-stations-takes-americas-soul-with-them noted]] that in the local honky-tonk bar, "you have your typical George Strait po-dunky songs, and there are people out there, but it’s boring. No one’s alive. And then all of a sudden, they put on Michael Jackson. And that dance floor was packed, like sardines. And then they went back to po-dunk, and it died."[[/note]] are often credited for laying the first cracks in MTV's color barrier (with CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff threatening to pull all of the label's videos from MTV if they didn't show Michael). By 1984, videos by black artists were in regular rotation on the network. In 1985, meanwhile, the HardcorePunk band Music/DeadKennedys released their classic [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCPNMZuWwI "MTV Get Off the Air",]] attacking the young network for devaluing the importance of music and for being a corporate shill. Feminists criticized the channel's videos for [[MaleGaze their sexualized depiction of women]], especially at the height of the HairMetal and later GlamRap booms. From the other direction, MTV's also long been a favorite whipping boy for conservative MoralGuardians, who have long felt it to be a den of {{filth}}, dangerous behavior, left-wing activism, and {{political correctness|GoneMad}}, leading MTV to adopt a strict policy prohibiting videos with Satanic or anti-religious themes. Of course, [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity none of this did anything to hurt the network's popularity]] -- famously, UsefulNotes/BillClinton's appearances on MTV provided a huge boost to his youth support during his Presidential campaign in 1992.