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initiial audience of MTV

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they determined at the beginning that their audience would be mostly middle-class, mid-western, white kids

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they understood the demographic that was available to them

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think of the movie Wayne's World (1992)

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this gives you a good idea of what the early cable TV audience was

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lots of mainstream rock with emphasis on the aggressive guitar base kinds of groups

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almost no black music of any kind

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not too much music that challenged traditional male values

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mostly groups like Foreigner, The Cars, or Boston

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Michael Jackson makes video Billie Jean

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MTV did not want to play this video

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they argued that their demographic would not be interested in music by Michael Jackson or in most black artists

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to a certain extent there was a basis in fact for this

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the division in the 70s between white pop and black rock was quite distinct

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they were basing this information on market trends

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Walter Yetnikoff from CBS

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wanted Billie Jean on MTV, was promoting Michael Jackson

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he knew Michael was a fantastic and engaging dancer

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Walter said, "If you don't play this video my Michael Jackson, I will pull every video by everyone one of my artists"

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CBS was a big label and MTV needed videos

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first aired on MTV, March 10, 1983

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it became such a popular video that people went out and got cable just so they could watch the video

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the popularity of Michael Jackson brought the popularity of MTV up

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you could hear him on the radio

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but he was worth watching

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pros and cons associated with the rise of MTV

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pros

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opened up new approaches to music in a video

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after they got past the first few years of artists simply people singing the songs on the video

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told an integrated story

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better than just hearing the music

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a multimedia experience

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images had always been important e.g. on album covers

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cons

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having the videos available in that way makes your interpretation and understanding of the music too literal

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without it being stated so literally and visually, it leaves the listener's imagination open to meaning in the music that is all there own, i.e. enables the listener to participate as an individual

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when you have the video laid out for you, it shuts that creativity down

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the artists are giving you authoritative images to accompany the music and whatever images you come up with in your head is somehow secondary

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because these videos are visual, they tend to prefer people who are photogenic

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music became too dependent on looks and image, not enough on the music

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success became more dependent on how one looked instead of how one sounded