MTV – The First Ten Minutes

Published by djmick on February 4th, 2010

MTV - The First Ten Minutes

On August 1, 1981, at 12:01 a.m., MTV: Music Television launched with the words “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll,” spoken by John Lack.

Those words were immediately followed by the original MTV theme song, a crunching guitar riff written by Jonathan Elias and John Petersen, playing over a montage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. With the flag having a picture of MTVs logo on it.

MTV producers Alan Goodman and Fred Seibert used this public domain footage as a conceit, associating MTV with the most famous moment in world television history. Seibert said they had originally planned to use Neil Armstrong’s “One small step” quote, but lawyers said Armstrong owns his name and likeness, and Armstrong had refused, so the quote was replaced with a beeping sound.

At the moment of its launch, only a few thousand people on a single cable system in northern New Jersey could see it.

Now this small piece of history is available to watch on YouTube.

The first ten video aired were:

1. “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles
2. “You Better Run” by Pat Benatar
3. “She Won’t Dance With Me” by Rod Stewart
4. “You Better You Bet” by The Who
5. “Little Suzi’s on the Up” by Ph.D.
6. “We Don’t Talk Anymore” by Cliff Richard
7. “Brass in Pocket” by The Pretenders
8. “Time Heals” by Todd Rundgren
9. “Take It On the Run” by REO Speedwagon
10. “Rockin’ the Paradise” by Styx

It took another six years for MTV to make it’s way across the Atlantic to broadcast in the UK and Europe. MTV Europe took to the airwaves on August 1, 1987.

Exerpt above from Wikipedia

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