# The Father of MTV?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-father-of-mtv/147364>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [January 8, 2003, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-father-of-mtv/147364 "2003-01-08T20:32:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![yawndave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/43a26b/32.png) [@yawndave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yawndave)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-father-of-mtv/147364/1 "2003-01-08T20:32:12Z")

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I was watching the Collector’s Edition of “A Hard Day’s Night”, and in the director’s commentary, Richard Lester had a great line…Upon being told that he was considered the Father of MTV, He immediately asked for a blood test!

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**Author:** ![TheeGrumpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheeGrumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheeGrumpy)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-father-of-mtv/147364/2 "2003-01-08T22:11:56Z")

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Maybe it’s true… in the sense that “Hard Day’s Night” inspired the Monkees, and Mike Nesmith later created MTV.

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**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-father-of-mtv/147364/3 "2003-01-08T23:33:50Z")

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Yeah, I’d always heard (well, upon watching the pop up video version of “Daydream Believers: The Monkees’ Story”) that it was Mike Nesmith who was responsible for MTV.

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**Author:** ![Saxman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@Saxman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saxman)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-father-of-mtv/147364/4 "2003-01-09T00:05:27Z")

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Basically:

In 1979, John Lack, a young exec at WASEC (Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, a joint venture of Warner Communications and American Express), and Mike Nesmith pitched “popclips” (which were big in Europe) to Lack’s boss, Jack Schneider.

Schneider didn’t quite get the notion of “watching music”, Nesmith didn’t quite like the commercial and repetitive “radio playlist” quality of a popclips channel…

Although Nesmith left the project, Lack eventually won Schneider over and recruited wunderkind NYC radio director Bob Pittman…the rest became a story unto itself.

[Tom McGrath’s book](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1561387037/qid=1042070595/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-2801524-4825566?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) is a good, entertaining source on the subject.

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**Author:** ![djf750](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ea666f/32.png) [@djf750](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/djf750)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-father-of-mtv/147364/5 "2003-01-09T00:20:08Z")

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and Mike Nesmith’s mother invented Liquid Paper and she left him 40 million when she died.

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**Author:** ![yawndave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/43a26b/32.png) [@yawndave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yawndave)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-father-of-mtv/147364/6 "2003-01-09T18:20:23Z")

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Isn’t it interesting that so few _truly orignial_ ideas have come up in that meduim since those days of Monkee- and Beatlemania?