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Audio of the first Song showcased on MTV

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Audio of the first Song showcased on MTV

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This is a primary source because its the first song to ever broadcast on MTV.

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A Newspaper celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the launch

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A Newspaper celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the launch

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This is a secondary source because the newspaper talks about the launch 10 years later.

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This is a secondary source because it is a biography and is not written by himself.

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(1953-)
America Online, Inc.

Overview

The so-called boy wonder of broadcasting, Robert Warren Pittman earned his highly esteemed reputation by tapping into the collective mindset of the youth of America in the early 1980s, as he was instrumental in the 1981 launch and success of Music Television (MTV). The launch of MTV was only the beginning of the critically acclaimed and rapid ascent of Pittman in the American entertainment industry. He was also at the helm of Time Warner Enterprises, Six Flags Entertainment, Century 21 Reality, and America Online (AOL) between the late 1980s and the late 1990s.

Personal Life

Pittman was born in Jackson, Mississippi, on December 28, 1953. His father, Warren, was a Methodist minister and his mother, Lanita Hurdle Pittman, was a homemaker. Pittman's first foray into broadcasting came in 1968, when he began working part-time as a disc jockey at a Brookhaven, Mississippi, radio station when he was still in high school.

Pittman bounced between a number of universities throughout the early 1970s, including the University of Pittsburgh and Oakland University. Also during this time, he was continuing to hone his radio and broadcast management skills at various stations. He worked as a disc jockey in Milwaukee, and from there traveled to WDRQ, in Detroit, to work as the research director. Pittsburgh's WPEZ was his next port of call. Here he was the program director. In 1974 he started working for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) radio division in Chicago, where he stayed for the next three years. From there he went to WNBC, NBC's flagship radio station, in New York City. It was in New York that Pittman really started to leave his mark in the field of broadcasting.

Career Details

In 1979 Pittman assumed the post of vice president and director at Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company. Not long after this, he was made the senior vice president of the company. He was in charge of programming and was one of the key players behind the invention and implementation of MTV.

Pittman's success in radio not only gave him the necessary clout to get the job done well, but made him the ideal "father figure" and guiding force behind the soon-to-be-renamed MTV Networks. The idea was simple yet revolutionary-to establish and maintain a 24-hour all-music channel on cable television.

The brand-new network was to be run like a radio station that just happened to be televised. There were video jockeys who introduced the promotional song clips. The audience focus of the channel was on the primary fans of Top 40 radio, namely 12-24 year olds.

When MTV debuted, in stereo, on August 1, 1981, it reached 6 million cable subscribers. By 1984, the number of people who subscribed to MTV totaled over 25 million Americans. Advertisers, initially leery of MTV, were lining up to hawk their goods and services to the members of the young and rather affluent audience. Pittman even claimed to be able to ascertain the views and beliefs of the different segments of the youth population based on their individual musical choices.

MTV not only revitalized the record industry by opening up a new avenue of promotion; it also served as the cornerstone and flagship station for the Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, which was then renamed MTV Networks. The newly renamed corporation quickly swallowed up its competition, namely Ted Turner's rival video channel, in the autumn of 1984. This ensured MTV's monopoly on music video programming in America.

Seeking to branch out and to increase record sales by older segments of the population, Pittman helped to launch MTV's sister station, Video Hits One (VH-1), in January of 1985. The new station was geared to older music listeners ranging in age from 25 to 45, who were not as interested in MTV's young, trendy tastes.

Pittman continued to rise swiftly through the ranks at MTV. In 1983, he was named executive vice president and chief operating officer. Two years later, he was named the president and CEO of the Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company. The following year he spent time at Quantum Media before returning to Warner to act as an executive adviser in 1989.

After Warner's merger with Time, Pittman became the president and CEO of Time Warner Enterprises. It was a post he held from 1990 to 1995. Concurrent with this, Pittman also held the post of the CEO of Six Flags Entertainment, which was a subsidiary of Time Warner. In 1995, Pittman left the media business and took up a post at Century 21 Reality, where he served as a managing partner and CEO for a year, before the media industry lured him back.

Chronology: Bob Pittman

1953: Born.

1979: Named senior vice president of Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company.

1983: Named executive vice president/chief operating officer for MTV Networks, Inc.

1985: Named president and chief executive of Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company.

1987: Went to work for Quantum Media.

1989: Became executive adviser to Warner Communications.

1990: Became president/CEO of Time Warner Enterprises.

1991: Named CEO of Six Flags Entertainment.

1995: Became managing partner/CEO of Century 21 Reality.

1996: Became CEO of America Online Networks.

1998: Promoted to president and chief operating officer of America Online, Inc.

In 1996, after his tenure at Century 21, Pittman was recruited by AOL to manage AOL Networks, the fast-growing consumer services wing of America Online. Pittman was brought into the fold at AOL because of his impressive track record at MTV and Time Warner. According to an article published in the Economist, Pittman's latest challenge was to turn "AOL, the world's largest on-line service and Internet-access provider, into a household name for more than its notorious service problems. He arrived (in October of 1996) to run AOL's consumer side, America Online Networks. His goal is to make AOL a mass media company."

Pittman focused on keeping present online subscribers while trying to attract new ones at AOL. The Internet subscription service was faltering because of the volumes of negative press it was receiving, due, in no small part, to the technical glitches of the system. AOL was adding new subscribers faster than its hardware could support, triggered by new competitive pricing that AOL introduced in 1996. Pittman's job was to assure the customers and general public alike that AOL was working through the problems to improve service and quality and to tout the many services of AOL.

How did Pittman think that he could bring new life to AOL? He felt that this was possible by emphasizing the convenience factor of the service. As he told Mediaweek's Cathy Taylor, "so for me to be convenient I have to say, 'Ok, you like to watch TV? Ok, so let me get you a great TV guide. You want to go to the movies? Let me get you great movie reviews all in one place.' All I have to do is have parity. Make sure that nobody has a killer application that we don't have access to. So, for us, we've got the easy job."

Social and Economic Impact

Pittman was credited with stabilizing the world's largest online and Internet service provider, AOL, improving its position as a mass-market service, and expanding the AOL brand. He cut AOL's aggressive marketing campaign to slow the rate of subscriber growth to a more manageable level, and inked new deals that diversified AOL's offerings and sources of revenue. In 1998 his efforts were recognized with a promotion to AOL's president and chief operating officer.

He has earned many accolades for his efforts in the broadcast industry. Performance chose him as Innovator of the Year in 1981, and Life named him one of its Original Thinkers of the 1980s. Pittman also received the Monitor Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1993.

Sources of Information

Contact at: America Online, Inc.
2200 AOL Way
Dulles, VA 20166
Business Phone: (703) 448-8700
URL: http://www.aol.com

Bibliography

"Another Shake Up at AOL." Broadcasting and Cable, 4 November 1996.

"In Search of the Mouse Potato." Economist, 19 April 1997.

"Robert Pittman." Adweek, 26 August 1991.

"Robert W. Pittman." Contemporary Newsmakers 85. Detroit: Gale, 1985.

"Superboy's Further Adventures." Adweek, 11 June 1990.

"Welcome, 'You've Got Bob Pittman.'" Mediaweek, 2 December 1996.

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Pittman, Bob(1953-)
America Online, Inc. Source for information on Pittman, Bob: Business Leader Profiles for Students dictionary.

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This is a secondary source because it tells about the historic event not being there first hand.

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Statuette given to commemorate first ever MTV music awards

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Statuette given to commemorate first ever MTV music awards

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This is a Primary source because it was from the first ever MTV music award.

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This is a secondary source because it was written after the event and not from people who witnessed the event.

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MTV, cable television network that began as a 24-hour platform for music videos.

MTV debuted just after midnight on August 1, 1981, with the broadcast of "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. Following the format of Top 40 radio, video disc jockeys (or "veejays") introduced videos and bantered about music news between clips. After an initial splash, the network struggled in its early years. The music video reservoir was then somewhat shallow, resulting in frequent repetition of clips, and cable television remained a luxury that had not quite found its market. MTV expanded its programming to include rhythm and blues artists, and the network took off. Singles such as " Billie Jean" and " Beat It" from Michael Jackson's Thriller (1982) not only showcased the strengths of the music video format but proved that exposure on MTV could propel artists to superstardom.

The network brought success to such newcomers as Madonna and new wave icons Duran Duran, who used increasingly sophisticated techniques to make the visual elements of the video as important as the music. MTV also gave renewed life to veteran performers such as ZZ Top, Tina Turner, and Peter Gabriel, each of whom scored the biggest hits of their careers thanks to heavy rotation of their videos. By the mid-1980s, MTV had produced a noticeable effect on motion pictures, commercials, and television. It also changed the music industry; looking good (or at least interesting) on MTV became as important as sounding good when it came to selling recordings.

In 1985 entertainment conglomerate Viacom Inc. purchased MTV Networks, the parent corporation of MTV, from Warner Communications Inc., and the shift in content was both dramatic and immediate. Instead of free-form playlists of music that covered a veejay's entire shift, videos were packaged into discrete blocks based on genre. This gave rise to specialty shows such as 120 Minutes ( alternative rock), Headbangers Ball ( heavy metal), and Yo! MTV Raps ( hip-hop). Before long, game shows, reality shows, animated cartoons, and soap operas began to appear in the MTV lineup, and the network shifted its focus from music to youth-oriented pop culture.

By the mid-1990s, the majority of MTV's daily schedule was devoted to programming that was not related to music. Its sister station VH1 had been broadcasting adult-oriented rock videos since 1985, and it soon filled the vacuum, with original content such as Pop Up Video and the documentary series Behind the Music. MTV Networks launched MTV2 in 1996, with the intention of recapturing the spirit embodied by their "I want my MTV" advertising campaign in the 1980s. MTV2 started with the same free-form structure that characterized early MTV, but it soon shifted to genre-specific programs. By 2005 MTV2 had followed the same course as its parent network, with the bulk of its schedule consisting of reality shows, celebrity coverage, and comedies.

While music had a reduced presence on MTV, videos remained important to the network and its image. Beginning in 1984, MTV honoured achievement in the format with its annual Video Music Awards. Total Request Live ( TRL), an hour-long interview and music video show, debuted in 1998 and anchored the weekday lineup. By the early 21st century, however, MTV increasingly sought to position itself as a destination for music on the Internet. Its Web site offered streaming video and audio content, and in 2007 it launched Rhapsody America, a joint venture with RealNetworks and Verizon Wireless, as a subscription-based alternative to Apple Inc.'s wildly popular iTunes service; in 2010 it was spun off as the independent company Rhapsody International. Partly because of the popularity of viewing music videos on the Internet, TRL was canceled in 2008, though it returned in 2017.

In addition to its American properties, MTV maintained several continentwide channels and numerous country-specific channels across the world.

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MTV | History, Music Videos, Shows, & Facts

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MTV, television network that began in 1981 as a 24-hour platform for music videos and by the mid-1980s had a noticeable effect on movies and television, as well as the music industry. It launched the Video Music Awards in 1984, and in the 21st century it tried to position itself as a music destination on the Internet.

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This is a primary source because Mark Goodman is interviewed and talked about his experience of being a host on MTV since the launch.

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Original MTV VJ Mark Goodman on the Launch of MTV

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A Photograph of the first segment of the Launch. 

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A Photograph of the first segment of the Launch. 

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This is a primary source because it is a photo of the MTV launch and shows the first segment.

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This is a secondary source because its an article looking back at when David Bowie called out MTV for not playing Black artists.

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After the stunning news of David Bowie's death, people all over the world tearfully dug out their old Bowie records and re-lived the countless amazing moments from his five-decade career. One of the most interesting clips to emerge comes from MTV, who posted this interview that Bowie did in 1983 with original VJ Mark Goodman - even though it doesn't paint the network in a very flattering light. While promoting Let's Dance, Bowie takes the then two-year-old network to task for playing virtually no videos by black artists. "Having watched MTV over the past few months, it's a solid enterprise with a lot going for it," Bowie said. "I'm just floored that by the fact that there's so few black artists featured on it. Why is that?"

This put Goodman in a pretty awkward position, and he attempted to defend his employers. "I think we're trying to move in that direction," he said. "We want to play artists that seem to be doing music that fits into what we want to play on MTV. The company is thinking in terms of narrow-casting." This half-hearted response did little to address Bowie's points. "The only few black artists one does see are on in about 2:30 in the morning until 6:00," Bowie said. "Very few are featured prominently during the day. I'll see that over the last couple of weeks things have been changing, but it's been a slow process."

In a move that Goodman probably regrets today, he tried to explain the decision in terms of geography: "We have to try and do what we think not only New York and Los Angeles will appreciate, but also Poughkeepsie or the Midwest, pick some town in the Midwest that would be scared to death by Prince, which we're playing, or a string of other black faces.We have to play the type of music the entire country would like."

Bowie couldn't help put smirk at the idea of Prince's black face somehow scaring people in the Midwest, and he had a pretty good counterpoint when Goodman suggested that the teenagers of 1983 wouldn't appreciate artists like the Isley Brothers. "I'll tell you what maybe the Isley Brothers or Marvin Gaye means to a black 17-year-old," Bowie said. "And surely he's part of America as well. Do you not find that it's a frightening predicament to be in? Is it not possible it should be a conviction of the station to be fair? It does seem to be rampant through American media. Should it not be a challenge to make the media far more integrated?"

The camera zooms tight into Bowie's stunned face near the end as Goodman meekly explains that some white kids don't want to hear black music, unlike in 1967, and therefore the network needs to tread carefully. "Interesting," he says. "Thank you very much...I understand your point of view."

Michael Jackson's name wasn't brought up a single time in this interview, but this was the year he released videos for "Thriller" and "Billie Jean." They appealed to kids in New York, Los Angeles, Poughkeepsie, the Midwest and all over the world, and their popularity forced MTV to reconsider their policy on black music. But before that happened, David Bowie was one of the few white voices in rock brave enough to take MTV on directly. It's a small moment in his amazing legacy, but it's fascinating to watch over three decades later.
Editor's Note: A version of this story was originally published January 13th, 2016]

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Flashback: David Bowie Rips Into MTV for Ignoring Blacks

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After the stunning news of David Bowie's death, people all over the world tearfully dug out their old Bowie records and re-lived the countless amazing moments from his five-decade career. One of the most interesting clips to emerge comes from MTV, who posted this interview that Bowie did in 1983 with original VJ Mark Goodman - even though it doesn't paint the network in a very flattering light.

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This is a primary source because it shows the original broadcast from the launch of MTV.