when did you first get MTV?

[jwgreek8606]

Do any of you remember when you first got MTV? Did you get it from Day one? Did you get it during the glory days in the 80s?

 

[easttxtv]

It was around 1986-1987 before we could afford cable. I watched a little of it but I was working and in college at the time.

 

[landtuna]

1982. MTV was the first cable channel I blocked. It has never been viewable in my house.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Summer of 1982. Lived in Pittsburgh where they had long drawn out political fights over awarding the franchise until
Warner QUBE won out. They started with the flat areas of town along the river, which was not me. I had friends who
lived in wired areas who had it from the beginning, but not me.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I'd like to add that I feel MTV today bears no resemblance to the original VJ format we all remember.
In it's current form I agree that it should be blocked from teens. I can't think of anything in their
current lineup that is not culturally corrosive.

(I recall working in an office with an Indian software consultant several years ago. He checked a news page
from India and announced that MTV was launching an India channel. I got up, walked across the room, shook
his hand and said "Welcome to the end of civilization!")

 

[stdjsb25]

Summer 1985. When my dad bought a C-Band satellite dish. My mother tuned it in one weekend just to watch a marathon of "The Monkees".

 

[jwgreek8606]

landtuna, why did you block it? What was wrong with it? I see nothing wrong with the MTV of the 80s but I do see something wrong with it of the now.

 

[landtuna]

landtuna, why did you block it? What was wrong with it? I see nothing wrong with the MTV of the 80s but I do see something wrong with it of the now.

My kids were very young in the early 80's and I did not want them influenced by tasteless trash videos and music. I figured they'd get enough of it when visiting their friends but didn't want it in my house. The few good videos weren't worth the other junk. And I'm sure glad we didn't have it when rap and hip-hop became popular.

 

[dave73]

Cable didn't come to my area until 1984, and that was around the time it was part of the original lineup. The cable company at the time in my community was TCI. The other cable company was US Cable, and they didn't add MTV until about 1983, when they had to give people new cable boxes for channel beyond channel 37. That cable system had the original Jerrold cable box that had 12 buttons, and a switch to activate channels in the top row, middle row, & the bottom row.

 

[cowboybud]

Sometime in 1982 (we got cable in '81). First video I remember seeing was Devo's "Satisfaction".

 

[Markieo]

Summer of 1984, when MTV was worth watching. Then it slowly started to go to crap. Rap. Hip-Hop. Aeon Flux. The Real World. FLUSH!

 

[nightfly61]

8-th grade I remember the old Bowie promo: "Call Your Local Cable Company & Say......I Want My MTV
(then back into videos).

 

[David67]

November 1981,those were great days for a 14 year old like Myself! MTV opened up a new World. ;D

 

[KML0224]

Although the quality isn't the best, I have their first hour rebroadcast from 1991 (10th anniversary) in my collection somewhere. As for their start, I think then-United Cable here in New Britain, CT is one of the few who have been with MTV from day one.

 

[nightfly61]

Jeesh, I'm glad my parents weren't as fuddy duddy & biased as landtuna. Poor kids probably got stuck watching Masterpiece Theatre & the Lawrence Welk Show, since that's "real music". :
Before I knew there was an MTV I wanted to get into broadcasting-MTV kinda pushed it along. I would sit & drool over Martha Quinn every chance I got. Plus back then their spot breaks weren't 7 minutes long like in the later years. Videos started really getting cool 83-84...memorable ones...Uptown Girl, Say, Say, Say, 99 Red Balloons, Somebody's Watching Me,Modern Day Delilah, Kayleigh, They Don't Know(about us) & Geuffria's "Call To The Heart".

 

[landtuna]

Jeesh, I'm glad my parents weren't as fuddy duddy & biased as landtuna. Poor kids probably got stuck watching Masterpiece Theatre & the Lawrence Welk Show, since that's "real music". :

My kids never complained. They all went their separate musical ways. One is Country. One is heavy metal. And one is Oldies/Smooth Jazz. I don't think any of them watched Masterpiece Theatre and I know none of them watched Welk. None of them dress or act like street thugs or cartoon characters either so it must have worked.

 

[firepoint525]

Summer 1985. When my dad bought a C-Band satellite dish. My mother tuned it in one weekend just to watch a marathon of "The Monkees".

That for me was the "jump the shark" moment right there! When they deviated from showing music videos just once, it then became easier for them to do it a second time, and then a third, then a fourth, and so on.

They even explained it away at the time by referring to the Monkees as "the first music video band" or something like that, but they no longer make any pretense of being a music video channel anymore. :

 

[joybandit]

It was May 1982. My brother and I (both mid-teens) had MTV on all the time.

 

[Bob1370]

Our cable system (Time-Life of Rochester, predecessor of Time Warner) offered it on basic cable on day one in the fall of 1981. I first saw it that night and was fascinated. I wish more cable systems offered MTV2 which essentially is a channel which programs nearly all videos and video countdown/compilation/live music performance shows, like the old MTV. If you want to see music videos on MTV or VH1 now, you have to be watching overnights or mornings. Otherwise it seems like they're both nearly wall to wall reality shows (with occasional full length rock-oriented films) from noon to well past midnight. That's fine, there's a place for that kind of channel and some of the programming is quite interesting--but I wish there was also a place on basic cable for something like the old MTV with wall to wall music.

 

[MarcB]

I wish more cable systems offered MTV2 which essentially is a channel which programs nearly all videos and video countdown/compilation/live music performance shows, like the old MTV.

Bob, sorry to burst your bubble, but MTV2 has been an MTV Clone for the past few years. You want all music videos it's MTV-U. Even MTV Tr3s, which was supposed to be all Spanish Music Vidoes essentially has become a MTV Clone as well showing MTV shows either dubbed in Spanish or with Spanish Subtitles.

I rarely watch MTV now, but I used to watch the cartoon Daria. Once in a blue moon I'll watch Cribs or True Life. I used to like Pimp My Ride until they canceled it and the reruns moved to Speed-TV. And I'll admit it, Jersey Shore is a guilty pleasure for me. Drooling over those hot girls and also wishing that I could be muscular like the guys on that show rather than the obese whale that I am.