One of the earliest and greatest cable success stories, MTV was established by Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company (WASEC) after extensive marketing research. The key to MTV’s viability, at least initially, was the availability of low-cost programming in the form of music videos. Originally, these were provided free by record companies, which thought of them as advertising for their records and performers.

MTV presented one video after another in a constant “flow” that contrasted with the discrete individual programs found on other television networks. Clips were repeated from time to time according to a light, medium, or heavy “rotation” schedule. In this respect, MTV was like top-40 radio (it even had video jockeys, or VJs, similar to radio disk jockeys). Moreover, it soon became apparent that MTV could “break” a recording act, just as radio had done for decades.

The visual portion of a video usually consists of live concert footage or, more commonly, lip synching and pantomimed instrument playing by the recording artist(s). Dancing is also very common. In many cases, there is also a dramatic or narrative concept, sometimes grounded in the song lyrics. The “acting” in a concept video is usually done by the musician(s), although in some cases (e.g., “Crazy” and “Cryin’” by Aerosmith), the video cuts away from the band to actors who act out a drama inspired by the lyrics. The combination of elliptical storylines, record-as-soundtrack, lip synching, and direct address to the camera seemed so novel in the early 1980s that music video was often referred to as a new art form. The content of the new art was sometimes bold (and controversial) in its treatment of sex, violence, and other sensitive topics.

Many of the earliest MTV videos came from Great Britain, where the tradition of making promo clips was fairly well developed. One of the earliest indications of MTV’s commercial importance was the success of the British band Duran Duran in the U.S. market. This band had great visual appeal and made interesting videos but was not receiving radio airplay in the United States as of 1981. In markets where MTV was available, the network’s airing of Duran Duran’s videos made the band immediately popular. Ultimately, MTV proved to be immensely important to the careers of numerous artists, including Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince, Peter Gabriel, U2, N’Sync, and Britney Spears as well as Duran Duran.

Andrew Goodwin identifies three phases in the history of MTV. The real ascendance of the network began in 1983 with phase 2, the so-called second launch, when MTV became available in Manhattan and Los Angeles. Phase 3 began in 1986, following Viacom’s purchase of MTV from Warner Amex and the departure of Robert Pittman as the network’s president and chief executive officer. Pittman had been largely responsible for leading MTV down the programming path of flow and narrowcasting. By 1986, however, MTV’s ratings were in decline as a result of a too- narrow musical palette.

Throughout its so-called third phase, MTV diversified its musical offerings, most notably into rap, dance music, and heavy metal. To some extent, these genres were segregated into their own program slots (Yo! MTV Raps, Club MTV, and Headbangers’ Ball, respectively). At the same time, the move toward discrete programs increasingly became a move away from music video. In the process, MTV became more like a full-service network, offering news, sports, sitcoms, documentaries, cartoons, game shows, and other traditional TV fare. Often these programs were also musical in some sense (Beavis and Butt-Head), but sometimes they were not (reruns of Speed Racer).

We might now identify a fourth phase in MTV’s history, dating from the late 1990s, when MTV itself became a sort of “flagship” network among a stable of branded subsidiaries. Even before this, much of the musical content displaced from MTV, especially soft rock and other “adult” music, had landed on Video Hits 1 (VH1), a second video channel owned by parent company MTV Networks (which, in turn, is a subsidiary of Viacom). Launched in 1985, VH1 quickly acquired a reputation as “video valium” for yuppies. For several years, the channel had an indistinct image and languished in the shadow of MTV, but makeovers in 1989 and (especially) 1994 raised the younger network’s profile. By 1994, VH1 was playing slightly harder music and “breaking” recording artists, such as Melissa Etheridge. Meanwhile, MTV continued to play innovative videos on programs such as Amp and 120 Minutes, but these programs aired at odd hours. Nonmusical programs such as The Real World, which debuted in 1992 and gave birth to the “reality” genre, sometimes seemed to threaten MTV’s identity as a music network.

By about 1998, MTV was again emphasizing music, but its most popular program, Total Request Live, or TRL, treated videos as raw material to be talked over and covered up by all manner of graphics and inserts. By this time, sister network VH1 was also relying more on traditionally packaged programs, such as Behind the Music and Pop Up Video (which, along with Beavis and Butt-Head, paved the way for TRL-style “vandalizing” of video clips). Flow and format, the original ideas behind MTV (and VH1), had by now become secondary components, at best, in the programming philosophy of both networks. These changes were perhaps best exemplified on MTV in the surprise 2002 hit The Osbournes, a program that seemed to meld multiple aspects of the channel’s history. Focused on the “family life” of notorious rocker Ozzy Osbourne, his wife, and two of their children, the series combined a fascination with music and musicians, the “inside views” developed with The Real World, and the (perhaps unintended) blankness of Beavis and Butt-Head. Following an initial run and tough negotiations with the family, the series was renewed for two more seasons and by then had led to copycat programming on other networks.

With home satellite reception and digital cable on the rise, MTV launched M2 (also called MTV2) in 1996. The new channel was very similar to what MTV had originally been. It played music videos in a continuous flow, with only occasional interruptions for video jockey patter, promos, and the like. In the early 2000s, MTV Networks exploited the original flow idea even further by launching VH1 Classic Rock (which specialized in 1980s videos) and MTVX (which played mostly hard rock videos). Despite their forays into nonmusical programming, MTV and VH1 are by far the most important outlets for music-video program- ming in the United States. They have achieved almost a monopoly status, one that has caught the attention of scholars (especially Jack Banks), record companies, and the government. Many competing music-video programs and networks have fallen by the wayside or have been absorbed by Viacom. Most recently, Viacom bought its last remaining major U.S. competitors in music-video programming: Country Music Television (CMT) and The Nashville Network (TNN, subsequently renamed The National Network) in 1997 and Black Entertainment Television (BET) in 2000.

Music video and MTV are major ingredients of television programming internationally. MTV Europe, launched in 1987, was followed by an Asian service in 1991 and MTV Latino in 1993. VH1 established a European service in 1994. In 2001 an international satellite directory listed more than 20 MTV channels worldwide, along with 7 VH1 services and 3 MTV2 channels.

Both economically and aesthetically, MTV has wrought major changes in the entertainment industries. By combining music with television in a new way, MTV has charted a path for both industries (and movies as well) into a future of postmodern synergy.