Talk:MTV

Original VJs and Format

I have discovered a mistake under the title, "Original VJs and Format". Someone, in their infinite wisdom, has locked this article and made it uneditable.

The mistake is the band name "Rolling Stones." The name of the band is "The Rolling Stones" and this section should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.209.43.126 (talk) 23:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

TRL FINALE

Celebrities gathered together to join the 10 year journey that has came to an end the mtv t.v show TRL (Totale request live) It was a major even happening in times square New York and a major live event.

MTV and VH1 name change petition to MTV Networks executives

It should be noted in the MTV wikipedia page that there is a formal petition to have MTV Networks change the name of their most carried channels: MTV (abbr.-Music Television) and VH1 (abbr.-Video Hits 1) to something more fitting to their programming. Neither channel plays music videos except for maybe less than 5% of their time, and there are channels that do have the MTV and VH1 name that actually do play music videos and video performances: what is now MTV Hits and VH1 Classic. The formal petition was cited here, but because the main website that it's being hosted on is on wikipedia's blacklist page, until formal notice you'll have to find it via a search engine.Surelock22 (talk) 14:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Here is one of the websites: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/526905262. Unless the media makes a big deal about it, I don't think it's worthy of inclusion. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 23:58, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Independent Competitors

On February 12, 1985, Boston based radio personalities John Garabedian and Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsburg launched Boston Rock Video WVJV, Marlboro/Boston, on channel 66. Popularly known as "V66," or simply "The V," WVJV was created to fill a void in Boston and its surrounding suburbs where, at the time, cable TV, and, therefore, MTV, was sparsely available. V66's format was similar to MTV's, where videos were played 24 hours a day in stereo, introduced by VJs. The station also produced it's own videos and shows.

Only a 5,000 watt station, WVJV had some influence on the much larger MTV. After MTV refused to air the video for "Take on Me" by the band A-Ha, V66, with its liberal play policy, agreed to air the video. "Take on Me" gained so much popularity on The V that Warner Brothers received thousands of requests from record stores to release the song as a single (something that was going to happen anyway) because of the demand for the song, and MTV received so many requests for the video that the cable station was forced to play it. Now "Take on Me" is considered an all time MTV classic.

V66 also helped Boston based bands by playing their videos extensively, and the same kind of influence that was exerted through the "Take on Me" video also helped Boston acts to have hit videos on MTV. The most notable were "10 - 9 - 8 (I'm Always Counting Down)" by Face to Face and "The Girl With A Curious Hand" by Digney Fignus. The latter won MTV's "The Basement Tapes."

Feeling the pressure of increased competition from V66, and later from another video music station in New York City called "U68," MTV tried to get artists to give MTV exclusive rights to air their videos. A well known example of this was Prince's video for the single "Raspberry Beret." Since V66 could not get permission to air the video, the station made its own video for the song, which was, quite simply, a continuous video shot of a "Raspberry Beret" 45 turning on a turntable while the song played. The locally produced video garnished so much publicity and popularity that the exclusive rights to the actual Prince video were waived.

WVJV was on the air until Memorial Day, 1986, shutting down due to a lack of advertising revenue. V66 and U68 were sold as a package deal to the Home Shopping Network, which, supposedly, was owned by the parent company of MTV.

Sources: The short Eventful Life of a Local Music Video Station -- V-66, Boston's Video Channel of the 80s (community forum) -- Signed by MalzywheelsNH February 2, 2009, corrected and amended February 6, 2009

MTV and rage

MTV should become more minimalistic like the cool Rage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.130.136.199 (talk) 23:13, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

MTV Games

MTV Games redirects here, but is not mentioned in article. Fail. Mathiastck (talk) 21:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

New Zealand

98.208.203.223 added this content to the article. It's an interesting story, but it's totally unsourced and not written in wiki style at all. I don't know what else to do with it so I'm putting it here. Anyone want to try and edit it? --Samvscat (talk) 03:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

New Zealand proved the ideal market for an MTV style format to launch, being unencumbered by musicians' union agreements (BBCTV Top of The Pops) and copyright rules restricting musical video performances. The seven major record companies regularly supplied the NZBC (New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation) with promotional 'music clips' on 16mm film, to play on air at no fee. As early as 1966, pop clips were shown within local pop shows. (eg: Kinks' Dead End Street / The C'mon Show. Refer: You Tube) By the mid '70s pop clips were becoming more plentiful and being supplied in the 2 inch 'quad' format. In June 1975 NZBC launched its second channel, TV2. Peter Grattan, a junior producer, coordinated music clips for TV2, scheduling them to fill unsold commercial time during the afternoon childrens' show Here's Andy. (eg: ABBA, Beatles, Bay City Rollers, Sweet, disco etc.) However some pop clips were unsuitable for an early time slot, (eg: Tubes, Frank Zappa, Bob Marley, Little Feat, Steve Miller) and 60+ of these clips had accumulated. Grattan proposed a late night clip show aimed at a mature audience. Former C'mon Show producer Kevin Moore had become Head of Programs at TV2 and he approved the first 13 x 1/2 hours to air late 1976. Grattan became its director, naming it RADIO WITH PICTURES. (Broadcast 1976 - 1991.). The original series of RadPix as it became affectionately known was unique in that it had no budget and consequently, no host; pop clips were segued with an imaginative graphic which reflected the artiste's name. (eg: The graphic for Bad Company showed a table setting with salmon and ice cream together on a dinner plate.) RadPix used Edgar Winter's 'Frankenstein' as its opening theme, with an animation of a cassette tumbling through the sky into a 'heavenly' stereo, all very ethereal! New Zealand's being a fully integrated, multi-cultural society meant that from the first episode, Grattan included such black artistes as Earth Wind & Fire, BoneyM, Bob Marley and The Jacksons. In November 1976, Mike Nesmith (former guitarist, The Monkees), was pert way through a solo tour of NZ and happened to tune in to RadPix one night in his motel. He was amazed to see acts he knew, but pop clips he had never seen. On his return to the USA he contacted his friend Robert Pittman with an idea to start a pop clip show. This then is the back story to what follows...

Art Breaks

Maybe they're covered in a subarticle?, the early MTV art breaks, short avante garde videos that were neither music videos nor station IDs. Would be nice to have a mention of them at least, though it's a fairly long article presently. Will look for sources. Шизомби (talk) 23:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

"Recent" is not actually recent

At the time of writing (June 2009) there are two sections in the article both labelled "Recent Programming" neither of which is actually recent, one referring to 2007 and the other 2008. The idea of recent is entirely subjective. What was recent to the writer may not be recent to the reader, and as time passes it will inevitably no longer be recent. Better to phrase it differently or to use a specific time frame such as "MTV since 2007" and avoid writing the requires lots of maintenance. -- Horkana (talk) 18:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

it is important to note that MTV was originally created for the sole purpose of watching music videos. Today, however, it has evolved into a comedy/ reality TV headquarters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.119.140.242 (talk) 22:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

NPOV?

Reading through the article, it seems like there is a lot of praise for MTV without even mentioning a single bit of the large deal of criticism the channel has against it. Also, there are some phrases have been tweaked to make MTV seem like a 'moral champion' when in fact they are nothing more than shutting out opposing views. I changed "anti-religious bigotry" to "anti-religious themes", trying to find a neutral phrase for the censorship. Ftc08 (talk) 17:04, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

One, there's an article about criticism of MTV. Two, I think that that article should be merged in here to give room to the most relevant criticisms. Have you read the section "Moral influence"? --Andrewlp1991 (talk) 00:47, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Impact/influence

Although the introduction makes a passing reference to the impact of MTV on the music industry, the article itself doesn't really get into the subject. It needs a section devoted to the topic, which could include the remarkable effect that MTV had on the sales of an industry that was then in the doldrums, how MTV (arguably) gave rise to such genres as hair metal, and the like. It should be researched and written by somebody more knowledgeable than me. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 11:25, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Revision of Moral Influence Section

The moral influence section deals with controversies that MTV has either been involved in or created. Since a controversy section is not foreign to a plethora of Wikipedia pages, and a controversy section can be created/modified in a neutral manner, this particular section should be re-titled " Controversy " Moreover, there is no other controversial show currently on MTV as infamous as Jersey Shore. The amount of criticism the show has received from national Italian American groups and news in conjunction with the amount of press releases the network has generated in defense of the show is well documented via print ads and news videos. Both of these aspects should be included in a Jersey Shore subtopic under a topic heading of "Controversy" to relay a neutral, yet fact specific account of this current occurrence with MTV. If there is no objection to this in the next day or so, I will go forward with incorporating this idea into the article. --Accountable1 (talk) 20:25, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

breaking the color barrier?

when were blacks ever banned from MTV? if there was never a ban, then how could there have been a barrier? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.142.255.231 (talk) 04:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Uh dude, Michael Jackson's label CBS Records had to practically force MTV to air "Billie Jean". They had a lot of popular artists on their label at the time, and they threatened to withhold those artists' videos from being played on MTV if they didn't play Billie Jean. Well, MTV finally relented and aired Billie Jean, and you know what they say, the rest is history. Thanks to Michael's explosion in popularity as a result of his videos being played on MTV, other black artists were able to be spotlighted on that very network, something that would've never happened without CBS Records pressuring MTV to be more diverse at the time. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 23:05, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Uh, dude, there was never a policy that they would not play videos with blacks in them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.142.255.231 (talk) 00:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

There was never a policy explicitly stating so, but that doesn't mean that MTV execs didn't turn a blind eye to black artists pre-Michael Jackson. Just so you know, you can discriminate without being blatantly obvious about it. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 04:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

your assertion proves nothing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.142.255.231 (talk) 16:12, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

it is nonsense that MTV, an organization created to make money, would turn a "blind eye" to music that could have made them more money. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.142.255.231 (talk • contribs)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/28/michael.jackson.black.community/index.html

From the article:

"The former president of CBS Records, Walter Yetnikoff, remembered with scorn that MTV would not play "Billie Jean" or "Beat It" because it billed itself as a rock station.

Looking back on that era, a 1991 Los Angeles Times article quoted MTV founder and then-CEO Robert Pittman as saying the channel's format didn't lend itself to other musical styles, including R&B and country. And Pittman accused his critics of attempting to impose their musical pluralism on the channel's die-hard rock fans.

But Yetnikoff said he threatened to pull videos of his other artists unless MTV played Jackson's videos. Watch Yetnikoff talk about getting Jackson's videos played »

Soon Jackson's videos were heavily in rotation on MTV. Showcasing a black artist paved the way for the popular show, "Yo! MTV Raps," and other black artists, Neal said.

In turn, Jackson became one of the first African-Americans to be a global icon.

He also influenced a new generation of black musicians, including Usher, Ne-Yo and Kanye West, according to Joycelyn Wilson, a professor of African-American studies at Morehouse College, who specializes in popular culture and hip-hop studies."

I've got veritable proof to back up my "assertion". Try countering that. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 21:23, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Jackson was a star long before 1991.

There may have been a time in the 1990s when MTV thought they could appeal to a broader spectrum of listeners and not just kids. This may have constrained some of their choices.

There are always people around ready to scream "foul" when things don't immediately go their way. That doesn't necessarily mean that their viewpoint represents reality. Student7 (talk) 12:36, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course he was a star long before 1991. He was a star even long before the 80s as well. That's not what's up for debate. The 1991 LA Times article that is mentioned quotes a remark Yetnikoff made about his battle to get Jackson's videos played on MTV. What is up for question however, is whether or not there had ever been a point where MTV didn't play many videos by black artists, and at what point was that barrier broken and how. Fact is, prior to Michael's videos getting aired on MTV, you did not see too many black artists (I was not alive during that era, so I'm merely going by the various accounts that I have read and heard about the early days of MTV, I am not speaking from the viewpoint of someone who actually watched MTV back then) played on the station. Fact is, after Michael's videos began getting regular rotation on MTV, more black artists' videos were getting aired as well. Now we can't say for sure that MTV would not have increased the addition of videos from black artists if Jackson never entered the picture, maybe at some point, they eventually would have, but the fact is, a lot of people do credit the popularity of black artists on MTV to Michael Jackson, as prior to him, black artists weren't getting as much rotation. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 22:00, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

if it billed itself as a rock station then maybe that is why they wouldn't play good old pedophile Mike's records? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.142.255.231 (talk) 23:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I know that history likes to give Michael Jackson credit for breaking the color barrier on MTV, but the reality is, Prince's Little Red Corvette and 1999 videos were already being played regularly in 1982 - a full year before Billie Jean was played. Also, there actually were other black artists played before Michael Jackson, such as The Pointer Sisters, Eddie Grant, Tina Turner, Musical Youth, Joan Armatrading, and Donna Summer. But, getting back to my original point, it really was Prince who opened the door for Michael Jackson not the other way around. But, people like rewriting history. 69.122.122.147 (talk) 07:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)AR

"It was really Prince who opened the door for Michael and not the other way around".

Sorry, but who's trying to rewrite history now? Not even die-hard Prince fans spew such nonsense. 24.189.87.160 (talk) 08:08, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I rememeber seeing Prince on MTV in 1982 before Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album was even released. ThFSPB (talk) 05:49, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

2000!

MTV:Lanched 2000 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.82.164.170 (talk) 03:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Olsent1, 29 July 2011

Change 10 on Top beginning date from August 2010 to May 2010, because that is the month Lenay started 10 on Top. Source: I am her dad.

Olsent1 (talk) 19:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done Verified at tvrage Jnorton7558 (talk) 04:44, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

new

hi. can anybody use below page on this article. it about michael jackson.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2011-11-24/mtv-oral-history-book/50896190/1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shahroozporia (talk • contribs) 06:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

File:MTV-FEAR PILOT.GIF Nominated for speedy Deletion

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First non-music show on MTV?

Was it The Young Ones like i'm often told, or was this just the UK version?--92.237.91.201 (talk) 21:23, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Old websites of MTV shows

• http://web.archive.org/web/19990508192028/http://mtv.com/nav/intro_shows.html
• http://web.archive.org/web/20010604022152/http://www.mtv.com/nav/intro_shows.html

These list old websites of MTV shows WhisperToMe (talk) 21:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Who is "Pittman"???

Under Launch/Previous Concepts... the text begins: "Pittman's boss, WASEC Executive Vice President John Lac...".

Who the heck is Pittman??? There is nothing that identifies this man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.184.248.6 (talk) 04:09, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

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Who founded mtv???

This article reads like a freakin advert for mtv.. Nothing about the founder or his cia connection. Nothing about the occult symbolism... Nothing about nothing.. wikipeda stinks to high heaven, no wonder why you have to rattle you can for money every year...

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