MTV & Music Videos

In the late 1970s, rock music had become stagnant. Radio stations were cycling through the songs on their play lists. Revenues from record and tape sales had declined more than 10 percent from 1978 to 1979, and those in the industry did not know what to do. Bob Pittman, then employed by Warner Communications, came up with a solution:

There are people who grew up with TV, who learned to do their homework, listen to the radio and watch TV all at the same time. For these people, we needed to create a form that was non-linear, using mood and emotion to create an atmosphere.

Pittman added television to music. His idea for MTV was simple: "Get the record co

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e they were the ones most used to working with restrictions given to them by the producer, which "limits the creative freedom of the director." MTV was a vehicle for consumption on several levels, "ranging from the literal, as in selling the sponsor's goods, the rock stars' records, and MTV itself, to the psychological, as in the image." MTV was a continuous flow more than any other network because it was always an advertisement for something: "More than other programs, MTV positions the spectator in the mode of constantly hoping that the next ad-segment will satisfy the desire for plentitude: the channel keeps the spectator in the consuming made more intensely because its items are all so short." MTV dominated culture: "obsessed like much popular culture has always been with sexuality and violence, rock videos nevertheless represented these in new ways." The performers and managers relied on the "start phenomenon." They tried to let the audience identify with the band members so that the teenagers would come to the live concerts and buy albums, T-shirts and hats. By 1988, the production of videos to other material was just about 50 percent. There was more promotional material, including the regular ads, than wh
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2896
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)