They did according to everything I have read
MTV first launched in the United States on Aug. 1, 1981. The first video it aired was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles — which was also the final clip that MTV Music played on Dec. 31.
According to that article one station out of many finished with that song. “Each channel aired a different video in its final moments. MTV Music played “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles, while MTV 90s aired the Spice Girls “Goodbye.””
RIP. The picked a helluva song to inaugurate the channel. Somewhere I have a couple of VHS compilation tapes I made to play during workout sessions. Lots of great memories go along with the songs from the heyday of the channel.
The MTV many of us grew up with, the one dedicated to showing music videos, only lasted about 13-14 years. In its formative years, the network dabbled with original programing like Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes, The Big Picture, MTV News, Remote Control, Liquid Television, and many, many more I simply can’t remember. By the mid 1990s we were already making jokes about the lack of music videos on MTV.
As much as I hate to say it, the original MTV was simply untenable in the long term. Even before high speed internet became ubiquitous, MTV was changing. I miss what it was, but then by the mid-1990s I had pretty much stopped watching MTV altogether. Not because of the format change, but because I was doing other things.
That’s around the time MTV spun off VH1 as their primary music video channel. No music there anymore, either. MTV Classic, launched as VH1 classic in '99, still runs plenty of music videos; MTV Live, which had been known as “Palladium” prior to acquisition, runs concert footage.
MTV was cool. Uh huh huh…
I played Video Killed the Radio Star today. Great song, weird video, and a couple of awesomely prescient lines.
They took the credit for your second symphony
Rewritten by machine on new technology
And now I understand the problems you could see
MTV was responsible for the mindset that how an artist looked was more important than how they sounded. Good riddance.
They put on the first modern reality show and are responsible for that mess although it was probably inevitable.
The first thing that could probably be called reality tv was Candid Camera which is from the earliest days but that was a hidden camera.
An American Family was in the early 70s and followed a family around doing what they did and it was truly groundbreaking but it was on PBS and the producers didn’t really get involved to create tension.
The Real World in the early 90s was geared towards young people and combined this concept with soap opera drama. It was relatively cheap to produce and didn’t really need a writing staff.
TRL (Total Request Live) killed the video star. The format went from your first sentence to your second.
Funny thing is, VKtRS was not supposed to be the first video they aired. Someone grabbed the wrong cassette.
There is a thread here that linked to a youtube of the first two hours. Very historically interesting, Some good videos, too.
I WANT MY MTV.
Too bad it never really existed.
My college town didn’t get MTV, so we had to get by with Night Tracks and Radio 1990 (remember when that year was The Future?). When I’d visit someone in a city that got it, I’d ignore them and watch MTV.
Anyone else watch MTV2 premiere in 1996? They started with Beck’s “Where It’s At” song.
I watched it begin.
Uh, is it still a thing at all?
Was it? This is one of those things I’ve certainly heard, like “Rock Me Tonight” ended Billy Squire’s career, but I’m not sure it’s true.
I can’t be the only person who thought TRL stood for “The Real World” and that using an L to stand for “World” was some kind of ultra-hip only-the-cool-kids-will-get-it thing.
..right?
Well, I’m just giving my opinion, but it is one shared by many.
From the Gainesville Sun:
“The pervasiveness of video clips made lip-synching seem natural, presaging nonsinging stars like Ashlee Simpson. Video’s demand for beautiful people lionized looks over talent, making it possible for someone with a gnat-size voice, but a bodacious-sized butt - calling J.Lo! - to sell millions of CDs. And the cult of “personality” became so huge that having a reality show became more important than a hit single.”
I mean, it’s literally what the lyrics to the first video ever aired on MTV are about.
It was the start of his downward slide but not what ended it, true. He continued releasing music to less and less success afterwards, but it didn’t end right there.
(And it’s “Squier”.)
I started that thread almost three years ago. The First Two Hours of MTV
I thought it was a fascinating look
If he’d only made a better video I would have remembered to spell it correctly. For a while at least, Squier seemed to think the video ended his career, but as you pointed out, he continued to release new material. Personally, like many artist before him, successful artist, I think he just lost popularity. It happens.
Sure. But I can’t help but think some of those arguments are simply sour grapes and a romanticization of previous decades. Tom Petty’s “Last Dance with Mary Jane” and “Don’t Come Around Here No More” got a lot of airplay on MTV, and as much as I hate to say it, Petty wasn’t a handsome man. Same with Billy Joel. Even today, I’m not convinced looks are the most important thing to musical success.
Haha, I have to give you props for this. 
Today, you don’t even need to be able to actually sing well to have a career. It can all be fixed later. I remember a recording engineer in Hollywood who had worked with Paula Abdul telling me that they literally had to record her songs line by line, sometimes word by word, to make her sound even remotely competent. She was signed because she was a good looking dancer. I cannot think of a single vocalist who would have been signed to a record deal without being able to sing prior to MTV.
Guitarist Steve Lukather once famously said, “If you took away Brittney Spears auto-tune, she would sound like a guy experiencing his first night in prison.” I bet that’s the case with most “singers” nowdays. But, then again, the public doesn’t really care if people have actual talent anymore.
Anyway, enough of the hijack. My point was simply to say that I never had an respect for MTV, and their demise was long overdue.
She was a Laker cheerleader discovered by Janet Jackson, from what I recall, so this seems plausible.