It drives me nuts that MTV insists on referring to 1982 as their premier when I remember for certain watching Music Television, veejayed by Nina Blackwood, in 1979 or so. I think they had about 4 videos - April Wine’s Just Between You and Me is the one I remember. My aunt in Columbus, Ohio had early cable & we’d watch it there while visiting.
Anybody else ever see this?
MTV started on August 1, 1981.
April Wine’s “Just Between You and Me” came out in 1981 as well.
Columbus was the site of an early experiment in interactive television called Qube. Among the original programming that Qube ran were things that may have included music videos - and, for all I know, Nina Blackwood:
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Columbus being a college town, Qube had a youth orientation, which generated a lasting legacy. Innovating what today is called “distance learning”, Qube viewers could use the PPV function key to register for assorted community education programs, such as guitar lessons taught by an instructor in the Qube studio. Another program targeting children, “Pinwheel,” let young viewers use the five response buttons for both educational and fun activities. The “Sight on Sound” show invited teen viewers to select among sets of five rock-and-roll artist, their performances coming from concert footage, promotional pieces from record labels, movie film clips, and broadcast TV appearances.
[quote]
FWIW, April Wine’s “Just Between You and Me” was first released in 1981.
For some reason, I was thinking some day in August 1981 was MTV’s debut date.
You are thinking, I believe, of Nina Blackwood’s Friday Night Videos, which was before MTV, IIRC. I am thinking maybe USA or something similar.
doh! ok, that was totally wrong. That was Rita Sever, and also not before 1981. I’ll just shut up now.
In addition to the aforementioned Friday Night Videos, HBO showed videos. (I think it was called “Video Jukebox” or something.) MTV’s big innovation was not that it showed videos, but that it was ALL videos and music programming.
It’s only logical that there would have been a certain amount of music video programming on TV before the launch of MTV–otherwise, how would they have known that there was significant demand for videos?
From Nina Blackwood’s official website (which is upper-case intensive):
Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, if I recall correctly. had videos as well as concert performances.