We Got Our MTV On This Day In 1981
MTV signed on, on this day in 1981 with The Buggles "Video Killed The Radio Star." While all of my friends thought that was hilarious, I didn't laugh much. I'm laughing now, because MTV has pretty much stopped playing music, and I still am.
We could get MTV in Amarillo during that first year, but you had to know someone with a "special" cable box. I knew someone. We had dinner parties and he'd bring his box. After chowing down, we would sit and watch MTV for hours on end.
Sometime in 1982, the cable company added MTV officially. You could buy a spliter and listen in stereo! We atched for new artists and heard Duran Duran for the first time. Men At Work, Culture Club, A Flock Of Seagulls, and Asia, among others.
About 3 years, the Amarillo "Decency Police" got MTV taken off the cable system and all hell broke loose. People called the cable company, every radio and television station, and in a rare win, MTV came back. They even sent "Downtown" Julie Brown to town to flip the switch. She brought her "Wubba Wubba" and our music television was back!
Then, the strangest thing happened. MTV started adding actual TV shows. We saw less and less music on Music Television. Soon, if there were actual videos on MTV, I couldn't find them. Gone were Martha Quinn, JJ Jackson, Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwell, and Alan Hunter. We did a new channel called VH-1 with new VJ's, like Lynn Hoffman, who is now, the voice of Mix 94.1.
I haven't spent 10 minutes with MTV in the last 20 years, but there was a time, I would watch it 12 hours a day. It's never going to be the way it was in the beginning and we can all watch MTV's first hour on You Tube.
I've met Martha Quinn, hosted a video show myself, and fulfilled many of my MTV dreams. I assume it's still on cable somewhere. but I've moved on. But, if they would take ONE day, and play videos solid for 24 hours, I'd "Want My MTV" again.