1982
MTV not only often promoted contests; they regularly produced promos “naming names” of winners of past contests. This early example from 1982 shows VJs Mark Goodman and JJ Jackson appearing at the doors of winners. MTV branded itself as the channel where everyday people could get the chance to live like rock stars; the channel with the power to transform the lives of everyday people. In later years, the fantasy became couched in reality show transformations.
These four MTV promos from 1982 illustrate the parodic strategies often used in the promos. A couple target medicine ads, and another parodies promos for soap operas. While a couple create their own video, others utilize public domain footage, and all of them include footage from videos. We can also see variations on the original promises: “All Day/All Night” and “Better Music through Television.” The last promo illustrates an argument MTV made to cable operators to encourage them to add the channel: MTV would drive “second set” cable connections so that kids could watch MTV separately and parents wouldn’t be subjected to it. Instead of ending with a promise, this one says “Sorry, Dad!”
When MTV debuted Billy Joel’s “Pressure” in 1982, a 30-second promo was produced advertising the upcoming “World Premiere.” “Friday night,” Billy Joel’s in a spot, the narrator says, as we see footage from the high-budget video in which Joel is sinking into the floor of a living room. Another clip from the video plays with Joel singing as he watces a large video screen. “Tune it in and you won’t be like everyone else,” the narrator continues. “Only Billy’s seen it before you.” This word choice suggests not just exclusivity, but a familiarity—the MTV viewer on a first-name basis with the star.
This clip is from a PM Magazine segment which combined interviews and behind-the-scenes bits at MTV with testimony from New Jersey high school students about what they liked about MTV. The segment is interesting to consider in light of MTV's programming of AOR, which resulted in an almost total exclusion of black artists, at the time. The visit to the New Jersey high school features footage of VJ JJ Jackson, who is African American, and at one point in the midst of several white students discussing what they like on MTV, a black student says he doesn't like it cause he doesn't watch it. This is not remarked upon at all by the segment's narrator, but it does seem to create a rupture in the finely tuned PR that MTV is trying to accomplish by participating in the piece.
This MTV promo from 1982 comically has three animals speaking, Mr. Ed-style, about what it is they like about MTV. Essentially, they make MTV's argument about what constitues "video music" and how the visual component of videos might make fans out of people who otherwise wouldn't (and therefore, make record buyers). First, MTV was a source of new music, which radio had shied away from playing. The example here is British electronic act Yaz. Second, MTV brings known groups, but shows them in a different way. The example here is Fleetwood Mac, who happened to be the first band that partnered with MTV for an overall marketing plan for their new album to include video play and music news segments. Third, the example of liking a band because of what their videos look like is Roxy Music. Early in its life, MTV is very much using promos not just to create brand identity, but to define itself for viewers as well as the music industry...those paying for the videos and hoping they sell records.
This promo is taken from MTV in December 1982, when the station was still working to explain what the heck it was, and it echoes the descriptions that MTV execs gave to the press, and that ran it ads. "Suddenly there's something different about your TV. It's part of your stereo. MTV, music television is TV you use like radio. Turn it on anytime day or night and you know what you'll find: music." This strategy also explained the relatively narrow focus of the music on MTV to AOR, which caused black artists to be almost completely absent from the music videos played until spring of 1983. As the only music television channel, MTV was expected to have a more diverse playlist and was criticized from the very beginning for not doing so. But as a narrowcast channel, it's success was predicated on the notion that people would know what kind of music they would find at "anytime day or night", and that music was chosen to be AOR. MTV's eventual shift to dayparting in the late 80s was a major shift away from this initial model.
This clip includes a promo for a Fleetwood Mac contest that was a part of MTV's first partnership to promote a new album, made with Warner Bros. Records. MTV began playing videos off the group's new album the day it was released in June. The band also provided interviews to be used in music news segments, and to be put together in a documentary, Liner Notes. That doc and the contest, in which a winner would fly to have dinner with the band and see a concert, were timed for later in August. Thus, the deal was to promote the release, and continue promoting the album during the summer not just with video play, but with the contest and interview segments. Also of note in this segment of flow is an early music news package in which you can hear an unfamiliar narrator's voice. Soon MTV would do away with such packages, and have VJs deliver all the information.
Movie related news appeared in MTV's news segments from the beginning, though at first they were usually music-related. In this news segment from 1982, VJ JJ Jackson discusses a film starring Sting which has won an award at a Montreal Film Festival, an experimental film by Brian Eno, and a theme song that has just been recorded by Gary U.S. Bonds for the soundtrack to National Lampoon's Class Reunion.
This segment from MTV in November 1982, just a little over a year after launch, shows the ways in which MTV could help advertisers associate themselves with rock through specific sponsorships, but also immersion in MTV's flow. The music news includes a story on the Rolling Stones, then tour dates for the Who, sponsored by Schlitz. After this, a Schlitz ad featuring the Who plays, and again mentions the sponsorship. The MTV promo to listen in Stereo also features the Rolling Stones. Though not a part of the clip, which ends with the beginning of a song by the group Translator, the next song in the flow was actually The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up."
MTV was a major force arguing that TV (or at least MTV) ought to be heard in stereo, during a time in which set makers and TV makers didn't seem interested in improving television sound. Being "in stereo" served as another element separating MTV from regular TV, and also helped encourage record companies to spend money producing videos that would look (and sound) good. This promo, recorded off the air in September 1982, just one year after launch, describes MTV as "television you use just like radio." Best of all, you can just call you local cable company to get a hook up to your FM receiver. "MTV: The newest component of your stereo system."
