Who Built MTV? Michael Jackson!

This year, MTV—the network that once focused only on playing music—turns 30.

Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum have recounted the history of MTV’s first decade, which they believe was the network’s golden era, in a book titled I Want My MTV. The book talks about the giants of the 1980s, the greatest of whom was Michael Jackson. Of course, the history-making album Thriller can’t be left out.

In a new interview, these two authors were asked what impact the King of Pop had on MTV:

“Is there any artist you can say that without them, MTV wouldn’t have continued to exist—and thus wouldn’t have been built this way?”

Rob Tannenbaum: “Absolutely! Michael Jackson! He’s the one who saved MTV. In the network’s early years, they rarely played African-origin music. Their excuse was that they wanted to play only rock, and black music isn’t rock.

But many of the songs they played weren’t even rock. For example, they played white R&B songs. So if they could play white R&B, why couldn’t they play black R&B? I think that’s what made people angry at MTV.

Michael started making videos for Thriller in 1982, and at that time MTV was only three months away from bankruptcy and going under.”

Craig Marks: “This story also shows how much of a money-maker MTV was. In January 1983, they weren’t playing any urban music videos, but by November of that year they were playing urban music—and they were saying that after the next 10 minutes, they would ‘again’ show Thriller for you. If something is good, it’s good. I think they were pleased that they finally had to swallow their pride.”

Note: Billie Jean was the first black video that MTV aired. This video, along with Beat It and Thriller, were so explosive and popular that MTV couldn’t resist them any longer. Michael Jackson forever ended the network’s discriminatory rules, and MTV achieved a dreamlike success and credibility by benefiting from the audience rush toward the network to watch these clips.

Source: eMJey.com / USA Today