MTV was not the first music channel. There were others...plural.

[Wintw]

MTV was not the first music channel. There were others. Going back as far as the late 1970's. I don't remember the exact details but they were mainly on select cable networks in certain large cities and those that laid out near them. If I recall one cable network that had one of these music television channels was accessible through something called a Q Box or something. I don't remember exactly off hand. Then there was the television show on a cable channel called Pin Wheel that would become Nickelodeon entitled "Pop Clips" which was hosted by one of the Monkees, Michael Nesmith. I have never seen anything recorded from these sources though would love to if anything were saved from them. All of them failed commercially though I am not sure that that happened before MTV began. Again none of you will probably find any information concerning much about all of this because MTV and the music industry do not want you to know anything about it.

 

[Dekster]

I believe the USA Network was the first in the US to have something close to a music channel in terms of having blocks scheduled to music.

 

[Wintw]

Totally righteous and far out dude! Tell us more! Something sounds strangely familiar with that I must say. No chance of you knowing any sources of documentation concerning this in particular recorded ones, huh? That pisses me off no offense.

 

[dblack]

... Again none of you will probably find any information concerning much about all of this because MTV and the music industry do not want you to know anything about it.

You should contact Alex Jones about this right away.

 

[Augustine_]

MTV was not the first music channel. There were others. Going back as far as the late 1970's. I don't remember the exact details but they were mainly on select cable networks in certain large cities and those that laid out near them. If I recall one cable network that had one of these music television channels was accessible through something called a Q Box or something. I don't remember exactly off hand. Then there was the television show on a cable channel called Pin Wheel that would become Nickelodeon entitled "Pop Clips" which was hosted by one of the Monkees, Michael Nesmith. I have never seen anything recorded from these sources though would love to if anything were saved from them. All of them failed commercially though I am not sure that that happened before MTV began. Again none of you will probably find any information concerning much about all of this because MTV and the music industry do not want you to know anything about it.

Well they should have used dildo's instead of mic's

 

[Wintw]

Whatever gets you through the night! Is alright! Is alright!

 

[the other mike]

Midnight SpeciaL

rip Eddie

 

[MarathonMike]

Don Kirchner's Rock Concert was the first I remember. It began in the early 70s.

 

[the other mike]

The revolution with MTV was in creating a network exclusively for music, and this was in 1981 so you could say they got the idea from Ted Turner who just the year before started the first all news channel CNN.

A lot of people forget that HBO started in 1972. If you had HBO in the 70's you were cool.

 

[Wintw]

But MTV didn't get the idea from Ted Turner as was the point I was making. You all are posting shows with live performances. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about there were a handful of other channels started in the late 1970's that were exclusively about broadcasting "short promotional films" (a.k.a. "music videos") and live performances. They failed but MTV certainly wasn't the first. I find it fascinating, disappointing, and disturbing how the general public not only do not know this (to no fault of their own) but it is nearly impossible to find information concerning them. Again, none of them were syndicated nation wide but I am not sure that MTV was fully syndicated across the country either when it launched in August of 1981. I know when Madonna filmed "A League Of Their Own" the town they were in did not have MTV and she publicly declared them as losers for not.

 

[Wintw]

Oh, snap! I just checked (the ever lovable always reliable (lol) website) Wikipedia.com on this stuff and it looks like there are has been what I guess would be updating on it as I am pretty sure it had not been there before when I looked in the past though it does appear to have been there over the past recent years THOUGH I might not have looked there since then...I don't know. BUT it appears all sorts of interesting things happened even sooner than I thought! AND Angelo Ted Turner not only started an all music cable channel in 1984 it was the shortest existing cable channel of all time with a running time of four whole weeks! Interestingly enough it would be bought by Warner Broadcasting which owned MTV and would become in early 1985 something called...get this Video Hits One...ala VH1! Whoa! Heavy stuff there, man!

 

[the other mike]

What about Soul Train and American Bandstand ?
Hee Haw. Before that the Ed Sullivan Show ...

This is JC at San Quentin

 

[Harry Dresden]

What about Soul Train and American Bandstand ?
Hee Haw. Before that the Ed Sullivan Show ...

This is JC at San Quentin

those were 1 hour weekly variety shows.....MTV was a 24 hour a day music video channel...

 

[Wintw]

I would read the "Previous Concepts" and "Pre-History" sections on MTV from Wikipedia.com which gives insight that I had never seen or heard before from anywhere even after the information I mentioned the past day or so.