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And it continued in so many ways! When MTV first aired in the early 80s, they would not play videos by black artists.
by projectileboy 8y ago
And it continued in so many ways! When MTV first aired in the early 80s, they would not play videos by black artists.
- ams6110 8y agoCitation? That's not my memory.
- projectileboy 8y agoThere are a lot of different tellings of this story; here’s one: https://www.thoughtco.com/when-mtv-first-aired-black-videos-2834657 https://www.thoughtco.com/when-mtv-first-aired-black-videos-...
- purple-again 8y agoHere is the relevant excerpt from the link provided by another user. "Scant" is read by me to mean 'yes there were in fact videos, just not in the proportion to what should have been" in direct response to "they would not play videos" There is no room for 'sides to the story'. It was a statement made and countered by this source. We can take issue with the source if you like, but I looked them up and didn't see anything partisan about them. When MTV debuted on Aug. 1, 1981, at least one black face on the network was a mainstay. It belonged to J.J. Jackson, the sole African American on MTV's roster of video jockeys, or VJs as they became known. Despite Jackson’s presence on MTV through 1986, the network faced allegations of racism for giving scant airtime to videos featuring people of color. MTV executives have denied that racism was at the root of the network’s “blackout,” saying that black artists received little airplay because their music didn’t fit the channel’s rock-based format. “MTV was originally designed to be a rock music channel,” said Buzz Brindle, MTV’s former director of music programming, to Jet magazine in 2006. “It was difficult for MTV to find African American artists whose music fit the channel’s format that leaned toward rock at the outset.” With so few black rockers, adding African Americans to MTV’s roster proved difficult, according to the network’s co-founder Les Garland, whom Jet also interviewed. “We had nothing to pick from,” Garland explained. “Fifty percent of my time was spent in the early days of MTV convincing artists to make music videos and convincing record labels to put up money to make those videos…”
- forapurpose 8y agoThat tells only MTV's side of the story, and IME everyone has an excuse for discrimination. It's not a signal of anything; it's just part of the process. Also, can you provide a link to the source? To quote, either start each paragraph with ">", or put asterisks (sans spaces) before and after the text.
- laretluval 8y agoWho would have sufficient information to tell another side to this story?
- icebraining 8y agoWell, it seems interesting that when David Bowie asked the same question to one of MTV's veejays, his answer was more about the sensibilities of the viewers than the lack of supply: “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 which would be scared to death by … a string of other black faces, or black music.” Which is more like saying, "we're not racists, we just have to appease racists to make our profits". https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/11/how-david-bowie-confronted-mtv-for-ignoring-black-artists-in-the-early-1980s/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/w...
- mobilefriendly 8y agoMichael Jackson's Thriller video was a huge force in bringing MTV to mass audiences.
- gaadd33 8y agoWere there a lot of music videos made before MTV? Just curious about the progression of them and how they came to be distributed before there was a cable tv channel.