April 8, 2021 • 27 mins
In 1981, the world was introduced to Music Television, and the job of video jockey, or VJ, was born.
In this first part of a two-episode special, our expert guests are Martha Quinn, original MTV VJ, and Bob Pittman, who led the team that created MTV.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, there, jobs leaders, it's Helen hang here and we
have a special two part episode today. We didn't intend
for it to be a two parter, but then we
started going into it and was like, whoa, this is
enough good stuff for two episodes, So buckle up. Here's
the first of two parts. On MTV before the Internet
(00:36):
killed the video Star, Video killed the radio Star yep.
On today's episode, we are looking at MTV. When MTV began,
it was just music videos, nothing but music videos, twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week. And who
presented these music videos? And this episode, I want my
(01:01):
MTV VJs. So, Helen, you watched MTV growing up, right?
I did not too much because my parents never paid
for cable. I think they met. We might have had
cable for like three months and then my parents were like,
oh no, this is too expensive. But but even I
think when I was watching it, like it was already
(01:22):
they're already kind of switched over to like the real
world and like you know, MTV cribs and like that
kind of era. So, Matt, you mentioned VJ. I'm assuming
that's the job we're talking about today. It's so crazy
because I I can't imagine like a time where MTV
had like video jockeys on the air. MTV started out
(01:47):
as just playing music videos, and the folks who introduced
and presented these music videos were video jockeys or VJs. Mr.
Alan Hunter, similar to the name DJ's for disc jockeys
who did essentially the same thing but on radio. I
don't think I ever even remember a time as a kid,
(02:09):
because we didn't really have cable too much when I
was a kid either. I'm seeing a VJ. I definitely
remember TRL with Carson Daley, but even the like, I'm
not sure that's exactly what a VJ was, because he
was like introducing guests and there was a live show,
and like they wouldn't play the whole video, right, That's
what I remember too. I didn't have cable growing up
(02:32):
as well, and so if I did watch MTV, it
was at my friend's house, and you know, I would
watch Beavis and butt Head or maybe the real world
that you have the late nineteen nineties. By that time,
already it was mostly not music videos and not VJs.
And so we on today's episode, we're actually going back
further than that to the early days of MTV. First
(02:54):
of all, I can't believe that we've gotten to a
job suite for a job that went up the lead
in our lifetime. It's kind of crazy. So because Helen
and I are a little bit late to the to
the MTV scene, we're actually we actually have a special
guest here with us who is also our beloved producer
(03:16):
and creator of this wonderful show. Jason Elliott is here
and he I would say, he's part of the MTV generation,
so he remembers the VJs and remembers watching them. And
also he wasn't He was an editor and publisher of
Permission Magazine, which is or which was a punk, industrial
(03:37):
goth magazine in the nineteen nineties. So Jason, thanks for
joining us today. Well, hey, you guys, thank you for
letting me come and crash the party anytime. So Jason,
like you know, as Matt was saying, we're a little
bit late to the like, we're not really considered MTV generation,
but there is like a group of people that call
(03:57):
themselves the MTV generation because they came up in a
time when MTV was like so pivotal to society. Can
you talk about like when MTV first came out and
like what the world was like. Then, Yeah, I think
it's totally fair to call I mean, you know, sometimes
people call gen X the MTV generation, but like you said,
it's kind of a specific slice of it. And I
(04:20):
can honestly say that I don't think that I would
be where I am, who I am, or anything else
if it wasn't for MTV. I don't think it's an
overstatement to say that my life was profoundly shaped by
this weird little television network that you know, showed up
for basically, like Matt said, like a decade. So we
(04:41):
this is a jam packed expert episode, Matt, because we
also have we also are going to hear from We
spoke to one of the original five VJs, Martha quinn
Oh and a person who led the team who created MTV,
Bob Pittman. We spoke to them both, and so we're
(05:01):
going to get some firsthand accounts of what it was
like in those early days of MTV. Uh and as
a VJ for Martha, she did the job, you know,
through like the heyday of MTV. So first we're gonna
hear from Martha when you say that phrase MTV, when
somebody looks at the logo MTV. Maybe I am biased
(05:25):
because I'm an original MTV VJ and I go back
to the days when the M stood for music. But
my story, and I'm sticking to it, is when you
say MTV, what people are thinking about is what Bob
Pittman created. It's twenty four hours. It's music. And I
(05:45):
think when you hear about the Video Music Awards today
in that it's still running on that reputation of the
golden era of MTV. We know we're talking about here.
I think Martha's got it. I think you know, originally
the idea of MTV was it was a put it
succinctly a video radio station. We were going to do
(06:07):
to FM what FM had done to a m probably
less than a decade earlier than that. So we said, okay,
we're going to add the visual. And if you think
about what happened in music when MTV came along and
did that moment in time, is you had a generation
that had grown up with rock and roll music and television,
but the two had never successfully come together. And what
we did at MTV is really figure out how to
(06:30):
do that. That's Bob Pittman that that, like you said,
that's the guy who led the team to create it,
and they were doing something that everybody told them was
not going to work. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy to
think like now that our generation and later, like you
can't think of music without thinking about the the image,
(06:50):
right or the visual Like if I think of like
the band No Doubt, for for for some reason, I'm
thinking about the band No Doubt, Like I can't get
the picture of like and Stefani like jumping up and
down out of my head when I think of that band,
or like you know, Green Day or like any other band,
Like those things are now at this point like just
(07:13):
so irrevocably tied. I can't imagine a time where that
wasn't the case. The approach that Bob and the rest
of the team took to creating MTV, and you know
when Martha joined and everything, I had a lot to
do with just trying to figure out what it would
even mean. We think that music had failed on TV
(07:33):
because they kept trying to make music fit the TV
for so what we did and the great innovation was
who made TV fit the music for mood attitude? People
didn't tune in to say I'm tuning in to watch friends.
I'm not sure what networks on. They were tuning in
to watch MTV and to see what was on, which
was completely different way of watching TV. And it became
(07:55):
all about attitude, all about the mood, the emotion, how
you help, whether it was cool or not. And we
put most of our energy and efforts into creating that
kind of atmosphere. And when we did programs at that time,
we did programs just because we wanted to add some
special event or some destination. So there's something on Saturday night,
(08:20):
something on Sunday night that we would look forward to
some to break up the week. But we made the
programming all about come join us. We're gonna hang out
with some great music and look at these stars. And
you know, it's an interesting point that before MTV, musicians
really weren't celebrities. You didn't know what they look like. Remember,
(08:41):
there was no Internet. That is crazy to me, Like,
can you even imagine that Matt in our day now?
Like I can't think about Rihanna like or or post
Malone or Cardi B. We do need to add a
little context here. It's not like no music Asians were
visible visible, you know, like clearly we had bigger bands
(09:05):
like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones before that, you know,
most people knew exactly what they look like. But I
think what he's actually referring to our you know, I
would say kind of more of the blue collar musician,
which maybe that's a weird way to put it, but
I'm just saying, like the bands who they did it
full time, but they weren't necessarily like superstar status. So
(09:40):
a lot of stuff changed, you know, a lot of
stuff changed about the way that people related to the bands.
And then it also changed because they had to introduce
this new concept of a VJ and a different type
of celebrity. And here we've got Martha talking about it.
You know, it's so funny you talk about out. It
(10:00):
was such a new thing for the musicians to be
celebrities because they've never been seen on TV. When I
first heard the phrase VJ, it was a mutual friend
of mine and Bob's, a guy named Buzz Brenda who
I was his intern at w NBC, where Bob had
been legendarily the program director. He was one of the
(10:22):
youngest program directors ever of a major radio station. This
was UM in New York City and Buzz looked at
me one day and said, Martha, you should be a
VJ on MTV And I said, what is the VJ
And he said, it's like being a DJ, but on TV. Now,
back then, I understood what a DJ was. That was
(10:43):
you sat at a table with two turntables and you
would play one song on one turntable and another song
on the next turntable, and then you continue cycling through
your Vinyl one record after the next as long as
your shift was. And the only DJs on TV that
the world had ever seen at this point where Dr
(11:06):
Johnny Fever and Penis fly Trap in the w k R. Yeah,
so I used to be a DJ, and so that's
another reason why I'm so excited about this episode. Wait
what kind of DJ? So? Well, actually I was both
a wedding DJ for a while, but going back further,
I was a radio DJ just like she's describing on
(11:28):
w k RP. Wait, you were a wedding DJ. You
were a hype man at weddings get out. I didn't
really like it too much. Yeah, no, but I loved
being a radio DJ. That was one of the most
fun things I ever did my entire life. Did you
do it in college or like where. Yeah, I started
out as a college radio DJ, and I actually ended
up doing all kinds of stuff with that station. I
(11:49):
was like the station manager at one point. But then
I worked as a commercial d DJ for a short
while after that, which kind of made me not like
it as much anymore. But still it just it's an
amazing thing to be able to to know that you
have an audience who's listening live, and to have this
connection with the audience I think is powerful. Like it was,
(12:11):
it was a lot. I have a lot of nostalgia
for those days. That's what I was thinking being a
DJ on TV was going to be. So I said,
what do I do during the records? Like how would
that work? Would I do card tricks? Like what would
I do while the record was playing? And then Buzz said, no,
(12:31):
it's videos. And at that point videos were not a thing.
A video was something that Paul McCartney would send to
Don Kirshner's rock concert when he in fact couldn't be there.
So they'd say, oh, tonight, James Taylor, Blue Oyster Cult
and Paul McCartney, and you'd stay up till in the morning,
and then they would play this little commercial. That's how
(12:54):
we sawt of Paul McCartney doing coming Up or whatever,
and I was like, what, he's not really there. Videos
weren't a thing. So when MTV came along, everything changed.
It was such a major disruptor in so many areas.
So cool about Martha Quinn and like, like like this era,
the very first VJs. I think we're a little bit
(13:16):
before our time, so like we're not that familiar with them.
But I actually just google image Martha Quinn and she
is such a normal looking person like she and I
think that's what I liked about those early I hope
she doesn't take offense to this, but that's what I
liked about those early VJs that I did see on
TV when I was a kid, is they didn't look
(13:36):
like they weren't super glamorous. I mean maybe downtown Julie
Brown was like funky and stuff, but like, you know,
Martha Quinn looks like a normal person and like a
lot of these people I think up to Carson Dalely
and Carson said at least pretty handsome, but like you
know what I mean, like they kind of looked like
normal people who could you could know in your life
(13:57):
think about it, it's it's in a bigger context too,
because remember there were no prerecorded videos yet, there wasn't
home video, and there were had been only three TV
networks ABCNBCCBS occasionally had an independent TV station a really
big city, and that's all you could see unless you
(14:17):
went to a theater. And what cable TV originally was
when you built these specialized cable networks, it was a
what today we think of as on demand is instead
of being forced by the network programmer to get news
when they wanted to schedule it or music when they
wanted to schedule, as Martha says, twelve five a m.
(14:38):
In the morning they did, you could go to a
twenty four hour service and get that programming when you
wanted it. So you could go to a twenty four
hour news service like CN and get news for an
hour a day, but to be when you wanted the
hour a day, and you could go and get music
for two hours a day, four hours a day, but
it's when you wanted to get it, so that the
consumers still had a varie idea programming they liked, but
(15:01):
the consumer was in control. And today, of course you
know with on demand. You've got the ability to do
to start it when you want to, to pick specific elements.
But what you lost in that process is you lost
the curation. And what MTV was in the beginning was
an enormous amount of curation. We've looked at all the videos,
(15:22):
we've picked the best one and by the way, we've
scheduled them so there's a great flow to them, and
you see the more popular ones more often than you
see the unpopular ones. And Martha remembers one of the
biggest videos we did was Thriller with Michael Jackson. We
world premiered it and we played it, I believe Martha
every hour for a couple of weeks, seven times a
(15:45):
day easily, and so everybody was tuning in to say,
what's that thriller thing? Um? So that was what we
were doing for people, and then we added this very
cool atmosphere and attitude too. We did these contests. You
know when a howl from John Mellencamp and he'll come
and help you paint the house, pink, Let's do the
(16:05):
one night stand with Fleetwood, mac a Lear jet picks
you up, flies you there, you see the concert at
for one night and then you come home and you
can sleep in your own bed. I mean, it's this
sort of crazy stuff we dreamed up the Lost Weekend
with Van Halen. We're always pushing the limits as to
how we can make this thing sound revolutionary, cool, and
(16:27):
a bit dangerous. I think, Bob, you mentioned the curated experience,
and that led to because Thriller played at the same time.
(16:49):
You know, you couldn't go to YouTube and pull up
Thriller whenever you wanted to see it. You had to
wait for it. So everybody was waiting for it, and
it happened at the same time for everyone. So it
was a very shared and unifying experience for the MTV generation,
and I think that's part of why the MTV generation
(17:10):
is still bonded today. I feel like we all went
to the same high school. Whether you were on our
side of the camera or the audience side of the camera,
we were all sharing it together and it was a
very bonding experience. That's so interesting what she's talking about,
Like you couldn't just call up Thriller anytime you wanted,
(17:31):
and there's so very few unifying experiences like she's calling it,
like Game of Thrones finale. Matt I know you don't
watch Game of Thrones, and believe me, I judge you,
as we've talked before, I judge you heavily for it.
But like the Game of Thrones finale, everybody who's a
fan of Game of Thrones, everybody was watching it at
(17:53):
the same time. They were live tweeting it. People had
parties like and you know, and I guess now there's
sort of a similar I guess on the music front,
there's a sort of similar concept when a big artist
drops a new video, right, that's a unifying moment when
that's the day that a music video drops and everyone's like, oh,
I gotta watch this video, but they have to take
(18:14):
it upon themselves to like find it, you know, on
YouTube and and like you know, and then tweet about it.
So it's it's crazy to think like people were tuned
into a station waiting for the one music video that
they all wanted to see. Like it's such a bizarre
experience to me when nowadays, like you can call up
(18:35):
any video at any time, and the only videos that
are like novel like that is a brand new video
that's just dropped. Yeah, yeah, see, I would say that obviously,
today it's a very on demand situation. You can if
you want to watch something immediately, you can anywhere with
the internet connection. But you still see online especially with
(18:56):
platforms like Twitch and live streams. They're still very successful
on YouTube. People want to be there in real time,
you know, they want to see something live together. And yeah,
many record labels do still premiere videos with that live
chat on, and they they premiere them at a certain time.
And I think they're trying to reach back towards this
(19:17):
this era of of MTV where like, yeah, this build
up the hype and build up the community, like get
all the community in one place at one time for
this this big thing, to this brand new release. One
of the problems we have today in this country is
you don't have these moments of chaired popular culture very often.
(19:39):
I'm biased here, but I think radio is the last
place where you do have that. We say, wow, did
you hear what Elvis Rand said? Did you Martha Quinn
said this morning? Did you hear whatever? Where are they're
doing something? Everybody's hearing and feeling at the same time.
When you think about TV years ago, we come in
and say, wow, did you see friends last night? Yes?
And you start talking about this comedy experience. Today, you
(20:01):
come in and say, what do you watch last night?
And somebody might say a Game of Thrones, So don't
tell me about it. I haven't gotten that far yet.
So even if you find somebody that's watched something that
you have, which by the way, is getting rarer and rarer,
you probably aren't in the same episode. So we've lost
cultural moments to bind us together. And if you think
(20:22):
about one of the issues in society today is we
are sort of fragmented, so we can't find common ground anymore.
You feel it more than ever. This polarization and the
opposite of polarization is what's unifying. And I think people
really have missed the unifying benefit of entertainment. But I
(20:44):
think another point that I don't think Martha and Bob
did mention is music is just itself so universal because
regardless of our own values and beliefs, like I always
we I know, we automatically always go to political beliefs
these these days, or political parties. But but music can
a lot of times unify people. And so just the
(21:05):
fact that MTV, like that's what they were all about
and those early days was music, Like that's an easy
thing to unite people. Yeah, so what was TV like
before MTV? TV was three networks, ABC, NBC, CBS. There
was no home video You couldn't go rent a VHS
tape yet, so if it wasn't on TV or wasn't
in a movie theater, you never could see it. And
(21:28):
those three networks were programmed. Since there only three, the
winning programming philosophy called least objectionable programming. Paul Klein was
his name, least objectionable Programming theory, and his idea was,
since there only three choices, what will win is the
choice that's least objectionable. And if you looked at TV,
(21:48):
that's exactly what it looked like. No one wanted to
take a chance, no one wanted to offend. Everyone was
trying to be as the least offensive they could possibly be,
and it was really boring and people felt it. And
(22:09):
so for MTV to come along, that was something that
was so out of the ordinary and wildly offensive to
people who didn't like rock music. You know what's that sex,
drugs and rock and roll. I don't want that in
my town. It was it was almost like footloose. That
was what we were reacting to and we talked about
it that way. We said, don't watch that, watch this.
(22:31):
And when we said don't watch that, we put up
all black and white films of stupid looking stuff, and
we were making fun of existing TV. And that was
really one of our major marketing points, was to be
not TV. I mean, you think about in college dorms.
When I was in college, I didn't watch any TV.
It never even occurred to me. There was nothing that
I is, a college student would have wanted to watch
(22:54):
on TV. But when MTV came along, every college student
across the country became glued to the closest TV they
could find that had cable. And you know, I think
Martha's got a really good point is in the afternoons,
it was pro still programmed either for kids, young kids
getting out of school, or it was programmed for uh
(23:18):
the at that time called housewives, assuming all women stayed
at home, soap operas, and so you really didn't have
anything for young adults. Uh And there was very little
young adult programming on TV. And I'd sort of forgotten
about that until Martha said it. But you're exactly right.
Young adults didn't watch TV because there was nothing on
for them, and so when we came along, suddenly we
(23:40):
gave them a reason to watch TV. Had a cable operator.
We we did this ad campaign that said I want
to call your cable company and say I want my MTV,
I want my TV, I want my MTV, I want
my MTV. Cable camp We had to create it because
(24:03):
the cable people didn't want to put it on unless
we had them a lot of money. We didn't have
a lot of money. I had a cable operator come
up to me at some cable convention and furious at me,
and I hate you. Why do you hate me? All
those people are calling me all day long. I can't
get any work done. Wait a minute, they're calling you
to say I want cable. Isn't that good? The answer
(24:26):
was no. We had disrupted the cable business. We had
driven them crazy. They had never had the consumer call
and say I want to channel, and that was really
something new for cable. How amazing is it that I
just can't wrap that around my head that there was
nothing on TV for young adults. Yeah, me neither. But
if you think about it, if you know, even today,
(24:48):
if the only networks that existed today were ABC, CBS,
and NBC. You you know, like there'd be whole detO
graphics that would just check out because they're not even today,
I don't think they're really making programming those those networks
are not making programming for that age group. So, like,
(25:09):
it's so crazy to think that cable channel was like
punk and badass and counter culture, like because now we
think of you know, any network television as like boring
or vanilla or like who even watches like that anymore? Well,
and but remember cable TV is that's not public airwaves,
(25:31):
and so they could get away with a lot more.
And so it does seem like it seemed like the
perfect place to to do something experimental like this. Okay,
so that was actually just part one. We continue our
conversation about MTV VJs, So check it out in the
next episode next week, or if you're listening to this
(25:54):
in the future, just go ahead and check out the
next episode right now. Okay, is Jason one of the
creators of job slete Who was your favorite MTV v
J Find us on Twitter at job slete pod and
let us know. Everyone here would like to thank our
expert guests. Martha Quinn, original MTV VJ host of the
(26:16):
Martha Quinn Morning Show on I Heart eighties at one
oh three seven in San Francisco, and Bob Pittman, the
chairman and CEO of I Heart Media, Inc. Who is
also the co founder and programmer who led the team
that created MTV. Job Slete is produced for I Heart
Radio by Zellet manufacturing hand forged podcasts for You. It's
(26:41):
hosted by Helen Hong and Matt beat. The show was
conceived and produced by Jason Elliott, Hey, That's Me, Steve's Marky,
and Anthony Savini. Our editor is Tommy Nichol. Our researcher
is Amelia Pulka. Additional sound engineering by John Norton. Our
production coordinator is Angie Hymus. Theme music is by the
(27:02):
mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Extra special thanks this week to Mangesh
Hatigater and Susanne Kaufman for all their work clearing licenses
for our MTV episodes, and as always, thanks to our
I Heart Radio team, Katrina Norville, nikkiatur Ali, Cantor, Will
Pearson and Connald Byrne. If you like job Sleete, could
(27:25):
you do us a favor and tell a friend, maybe
even leave us a nice review. On iTunes. It's the
best way to support the show. You'd be amazed how
much it helps sell
Hey, there, jobs leaders, it's Helen hang here and we
have a special two part episode today. We didn't intend
for it to be a two parter, but then we
started going into it and was like, whoa, this is
enough good stuff for two episodes, So buckle up. Here's
the first of two parts. On MTV before the Internet
(00:36):
killed the video Star, Video killed the radio Star yep.
On today's episode, we are looking at MTV. When MTV began,
it was just music videos, nothing but music videos, twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week. And who
presented these music videos? And this episode, I want my
(01:01):
MTV VJs. So, Helen, you watched MTV growing up, right?
I did not too much because my parents never paid
for cable. I think they met. We might have had
cable for like three months and then my parents were like,
oh no, this is too expensive. But but even I
think when I was watching it, like it was already
(01:22):
they're already kind of switched over to like the real
world and like you know, MTV cribs and like that
kind of era. So, Matt, you mentioned VJ. I'm assuming
that's the job we're talking about today. It's so crazy
because I I can't imagine like a time where MTV
had like video jockeys on the air. MTV started out
(01:47):
as just playing music videos, and the folks who introduced
and presented these music videos were video jockeys or VJs. Mr.
Alan Hunter, similar to the name DJ's for disc jockeys
who did essentially the same thing but on radio. I
don't think I ever even remember a time as a kid,
(02:09):
because we didn't really have cable too much when I
was a kid either. I'm seeing a VJ. I definitely
remember TRL with Carson Daley, but even the like, I'm
not sure that's exactly what a VJ was, because he
was like introducing guests and there was a live show,
and like they wouldn't play the whole video, right, That's
what I remember too. I didn't have cable growing up
(02:32):
as well, and so if I did watch MTV, it
was at my friend's house, and you know, I would
watch Beavis and butt Head or maybe the real world
that you have the late nineteen nineties. By that time,
already it was mostly not music videos and not VJs.
And so we on today's episode, we're actually going back
further than that to the early days of MTV. First
(02:54):
of all, I can't believe that we've gotten to a
job suite for a job that went up the lead
in our lifetime. It's kind of crazy. So because Helen
and I are a little bit late to the to
the MTV scene, we're actually we actually have a special
guest here with us who is also our beloved producer
(03:16):
and creator of this wonderful show. Jason Elliott is here
and he I would say, he's part of the MTV generation,
so he remembers the VJs and remembers watching them. And
also he wasn't He was an editor and publisher of
Permission Magazine, which is or which was a punk, industrial
(03:37):
goth magazine in the nineteen nineties. So Jason, thanks for
joining us today. Well, hey, you guys, thank you for
letting me come and crash the party anytime. So Jason,
like you know, as Matt was saying, we're a little
bit late to the like, we're not really considered MTV generation,
but there is like a group of people that call
(03:57):
themselves the MTV generation because they came up in a
time when MTV was like so pivotal to society. Can
you talk about like when MTV first came out and
like what the world was like. Then, Yeah, I think
it's totally fair to call I mean, you know, sometimes
people call gen X the MTV generation, but like you said,
it's kind of a specific slice of it. And I
(04:20):
can honestly say that I don't think that I would
be where I am, who I am, or anything else
if it wasn't for MTV. I don't think it's an
overstatement to say that my life was profoundly shaped by
this weird little television network that you know, showed up
for basically, like Matt said, like a decade. So we
(04:41):
this is a jam packed expert episode, Matt, because we
also have we also are going to hear from We
spoke to one of the original five VJs, Martha quinn
Oh and a person who led the team who created MTV,
Bob Pittman. We spoke to them both, and so we're
(05:01):
going to get some firsthand accounts of what it was
like in those early days of MTV. Uh and as
a VJ for Martha, she did the job, you know,
through like the heyday of MTV. So first we're gonna
hear from Martha when you say that phrase MTV, when
somebody looks at the logo MTV. Maybe I am biased
(05:25):
because I'm an original MTV VJ and I go back
to the days when the M stood for music. But
my story, and I'm sticking to it, is when you
say MTV, what people are thinking about is what Bob
Pittman created. It's twenty four hours. It's music. And I
(05:45):
think when you hear about the Video Music Awards today
in that it's still running on that reputation of the
golden era of MTV. We know we're talking about here.
I think Martha's got it. I think you know, originally
the idea of MTV was it was a put it
succinctly a video radio station. We were going to do
(06:07):
to FM what FM had done to a m probably
less than a decade earlier than that. So we said, okay,
we're going to add the visual. And if you think
about what happened in music when MTV came along and
did that moment in time, is you had a generation
that had grown up with rock and roll music and television,
but the two had never successfully come together. And what
we did at MTV is really figure out how to
(06:30):
do that. That's Bob Pittman that that, like you said,
that's the guy who led the team to create it,
and they were doing something that everybody told them was
not going to work. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy to
think like now that our generation and later, like you
can't think of music without thinking about the the image,
(06:50):
right or the visual Like if I think of like
the band No Doubt, for for for some reason, I'm
thinking about the band No Doubt, Like I can't get
the picture of like and Stefani like jumping up and
down out of my head when I think of that band,
or like you know, Green Day or like any other band,
Like those things are now at this point like just
(07:13):
so irrevocably tied. I can't imagine a time where that
wasn't the case. The approach that Bob and the rest
of the team took to creating MTV, and you know
when Martha joined and everything, I had a lot to
do with just trying to figure out what it would
even mean. We think that music had failed on TV
(07:33):
because they kept trying to make music fit the TV
for so what we did and the great innovation was
who made TV fit the music for mood attitude? People
didn't tune in to say I'm tuning in to watch friends.
I'm not sure what networks on. They were tuning in
to watch MTV and to see what was on, which
was completely different way of watching TV. And it became
(07:55):
all about attitude, all about the mood, the emotion, how
you help, whether it was cool or not. And we
put most of our energy and efforts into creating that
kind of atmosphere. And when we did programs at that time,
we did programs just because we wanted to add some
special event or some destination. So there's something on Saturday night,
(08:20):
something on Sunday night that we would look forward to
some to break up the week. But we made the
programming all about come join us. We're gonna hang out
with some great music and look at these stars. And
you know, it's an interesting point that before MTV, musicians
really weren't celebrities. You didn't know what they look like. Remember,
(08:41):
there was no Internet. That is crazy to me, Like,
can you even imagine that Matt in our day now?
Like I can't think about Rihanna like or or post
Malone or Cardi B. We do need to add a
little context here. It's not like no music Asians were
visible visible, you know, like clearly we had bigger bands
(09:05):
like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones before that, you know,
most people knew exactly what they look like. But I
think what he's actually referring to our you know, I
would say kind of more of the blue collar musician,
which maybe that's a weird way to put it, but
I'm just saying, like the bands who they did it
full time, but they weren't necessarily like superstar status. So
(09:40):
a lot of stuff changed, you know, a lot of
stuff changed about the way that people related to the bands.
And then it also changed because they had to introduce
this new concept of a VJ and a different type
of celebrity. And here we've got Martha talking about it.
You know, it's so funny you talk about out. It
(10:00):
was such a new thing for the musicians to be
celebrities because they've never been seen on TV. When I
first heard the phrase VJ, it was a mutual friend
of mine and Bob's, a guy named Buzz Brenda who
I was his intern at w NBC, where Bob had
been legendarily the program director. He was one of the
(10:22):
youngest program directors ever of a major radio station. This
was UM in New York City and Buzz looked at
me one day and said, Martha, you should be a
VJ on MTV And I said, what is the VJ
And he said, it's like being a DJ, but on TV. Now,
back then, I understood what a DJ was. That was
(10:43):
you sat at a table with two turntables and you
would play one song on one turntable and another song
on the next turntable, and then you continue cycling through
your Vinyl one record after the next as long as
your shift was. And the only DJs on TV that
the world had ever seen at this point where Dr
(11:06):
Johnny Fever and Penis fly Trap in the w k R. Yeah,
so I used to be a DJ, and so that's
another reason why I'm so excited about this episode. Wait
what kind of DJ? So? Well, actually I was both
a wedding DJ for a while, but going back further,
I was a radio DJ just like she's describing on
(11:28):
w k RP. Wait, you were a wedding DJ. You
were a hype man at weddings get out. I didn't
really like it too much. Yeah, no, but I loved
being a radio DJ. That was one of the most
fun things I ever did my entire life. Did you
do it in college or like where. Yeah, I started
out as a college radio DJ, and I actually ended
up doing all kinds of stuff with that station. I
(11:49):
was like the station manager at one point. But then
I worked as a commercial d DJ for a short
while after that, which kind of made me not like
it as much anymore. But still it just it's an
amazing thing to be able to to know that you
have an audience who's listening live, and to have this
connection with the audience I think is powerful. Like it was,
(12:11):
it was a lot. I have a lot of nostalgia
for those days. That's what I was thinking being a
DJ on TV was going to be. So I said,
what do I do during the records? Like how would
that work? Would I do card tricks? Like what would
I do while the record was playing? And then Buzz said, no,
(12:31):
it's videos. And at that point videos were not a thing.
A video was something that Paul McCartney would send to
Don Kirshner's rock concert when he in fact couldn't be there.
So they'd say, oh, tonight, James Taylor, Blue Oyster Cult
and Paul McCartney, and you'd stay up till in the morning,
and then they would play this little commercial. That's how
(12:54):
we sawt of Paul McCartney doing coming Up or whatever,
and I was like, what, he's not really there. Videos
weren't a thing. So when MTV came along, everything changed.
It was such a major disruptor in so many areas.
So cool about Martha Quinn and like, like like this era,
the very first VJs. I think we're a little bit
(13:16):
before our time, so like we're not that familiar with them.
But I actually just google image Martha Quinn and she
is such a normal looking person like she and I
think that's what I liked about those early I hope
she doesn't take offense to this, but that's what I
liked about those early VJs that I did see on
TV when I was a kid, is they didn't look
(13:36):
like they weren't super glamorous. I mean maybe downtown Julie
Brown was like funky and stuff, but like, you know,
Martha Quinn looks like a normal person and like a
lot of these people I think up to Carson Dalely
and Carson said at least pretty handsome, but like you
know what I mean, like they kind of looked like
normal people who could you could know in your life
(13:57):
think about it, it's it's in a bigger context too,
because remember there were no prerecorded videos yet, there wasn't
home video, and there were had been only three TV
networks ABCNBCCBS occasionally had an independent TV station a really
big city, and that's all you could see unless you
(14:17):
went to a theater. And what cable TV originally was
when you built these specialized cable networks, it was a
what today we think of as on demand is instead
of being forced by the network programmer to get news
when they wanted to schedule it or music when they
wanted to schedule, as Martha says, twelve five a m.
(14:38):
In the morning they did, you could go to a
twenty four hour service and get that programming when you
wanted it. So you could go to a twenty four
hour news service like CN and get news for an
hour a day, but to be when you wanted the
hour a day, and you could go and get music
for two hours a day, four hours a day, but
it's when you wanted to get it, so that the
consumers still had a varie idea programming they liked, but
(15:01):
the consumer was in control. And today, of course you
know with on demand. You've got the ability to do
to start it when you want to, to pick specific elements.
But what you lost in that process is you lost
the curation. And what MTV was in the beginning was
an enormous amount of curation. We've looked at all the videos,
(15:22):
we've picked the best one and by the way, we've
scheduled them so there's a great flow to them, and
you see the more popular ones more often than you
see the unpopular ones. And Martha remembers one of the
biggest videos we did was Thriller with Michael Jackson. We
world premiered it and we played it, I believe Martha
every hour for a couple of weeks, seven times a
(15:45):
day easily, and so everybody was tuning in to say,
what's that thriller thing? Um? So that was what we
were doing for people, and then we added this very
cool atmosphere and attitude too. We did these contests. You
know when a howl from John Mellencamp and he'll come
and help you paint the house, pink, Let's do the
(16:05):
one night stand with Fleetwood, mac a Lear jet picks
you up, flies you there, you see the concert at
for one night and then you come home and you
can sleep in your own bed. I mean, it's this
sort of crazy stuff we dreamed up the Lost Weekend
with Van Halen. We're always pushing the limits as to
how we can make this thing sound revolutionary, cool, and
(16:27):
a bit dangerous. I think, Bob, you mentioned the curated experience,
and that led to because Thriller played at the same time.
(16:49):
You know, you couldn't go to YouTube and pull up
Thriller whenever you wanted to see it. You had to
wait for it. So everybody was waiting for it, and
it happened at the same time for everyone. So it
was a very shared and unifying experience for the MTV generation,
and I think that's part of why the MTV generation
(17:10):
is still bonded today. I feel like we all went
to the same high school. Whether you were on our
side of the camera or the audience side of the camera,
we were all sharing it together and it was a
very bonding experience. That's so interesting what she's talking about,
Like you couldn't just call up Thriller anytime you wanted,
(17:31):
and there's so very few unifying experiences like she's calling it,
like Game of Thrones finale. Matt I know you don't
watch Game of Thrones, and believe me, I judge you,
as we've talked before, I judge you heavily for it.
But like the Game of Thrones finale, everybody who's a
fan of Game of Thrones, everybody was watching it at
(17:53):
the same time. They were live tweeting it. People had
parties like and you know, and I guess now there's
sort of a similar I guess on the music front,
there's a sort of similar concept when a big artist
drops a new video, right, that's a unifying moment when
that's the day that a music video drops and everyone's like, oh,
I gotta watch this video, but they have to take
(18:14):
it upon themselves to like find it, you know, on
YouTube and and like you know, and then tweet about it.
So it's it's crazy to think like people were tuned
into a station waiting for the one music video that
they all wanted to see. Like it's such a bizarre
experience to me when nowadays, like you can call up
(18:35):
any video at any time, and the only videos that
are like novel like that is a brand new video
that's just dropped. Yeah, yeah, see, I would say that obviously,
today it's a very on demand situation. You can if
you want to watch something immediately, you can anywhere with
the internet connection. But you still see online especially with
(18:56):
platforms like Twitch and live streams. They're still very successful
on YouTube. People want to be there in real time,
you know, they want to see something live together. And yeah,
many record labels do still premiere videos with that live
chat on, and they they premiere them at a certain time.
And I think they're trying to reach back towards this
(19:17):
this era of of MTV where like, yeah, this build
up the hype and build up the community, like get
all the community in one place at one time for
this this big thing, to this brand new release. One
of the problems we have today in this country is
you don't have these moments of chaired popular culture very often.
(19:39):
I'm biased here, but I think radio is the last
place where you do have that. We say, wow, did
you hear what Elvis Rand said? Did you Martha Quinn
said this morning? Did you hear whatever? Where are they're
doing something? Everybody's hearing and feeling at the same time.
When you think about TV years ago, we come in
and say, wow, did you see friends last night? Yes?
And you start talking about this comedy experience. Today, you
(20:01):
come in and say, what do you watch last night?
And somebody might say a Game of Thrones, So don't
tell me about it. I haven't gotten that far yet.
So even if you find somebody that's watched something that
you have, which by the way, is getting rarer and rarer,
you probably aren't in the same episode. So we've lost
cultural moments to bind us together. And if you think
(20:22):
about one of the issues in society today is we
are sort of fragmented, so we can't find common ground anymore.
You feel it more than ever. This polarization and the
opposite of polarization is what's unifying. And I think people
really have missed the unifying benefit of entertainment. But I
(20:44):
think another point that I don't think Martha and Bob
did mention is music is just itself so universal because
regardless of our own values and beliefs, like I always
we I know, we automatically always go to political beliefs
these these days, or political parties. But but music can
a lot of times unify people. And so just the
(21:05):
fact that MTV, like that's what they were all about
and those early days was music, Like that's an easy
thing to unite people. Yeah, so what was TV like
before MTV? TV was three networks, ABC, NBC, CBS. There
was no home video You couldn't go rent a VHS
tape yet, so if it wasn't on TV or wasn't
in a movie theater, you never could see it. And
(21:28):
those three networks were programmed. Since there only three, the
winning programming philosophy called least objectionable programming. Paul Klein was
his name, least objectionable Programming theory, and his idea was,
since there only three choices, what will win is the
choice that's least objectionable. And if you looked at TV,
(21:48):
that's exactly what it looked like. No one wanted to
take a chance, no one wanted to offend. Everyone was
trying to be as the least offensive they could possibly be,
and it was really boring and people felt it. And
(22:09):
so for MTV to come along, that was something that
was so out of the ordinary and wildly offensive to
people who didn't like rock music. You know what's that sex,
drugs and rock and roll. I don't want that in
my town. It was it was almost like footloose. That
was what we were reacting to and we talked about
it that way. We said, don't watch that, watch this.
(22:31):
And when we said don't watch that, we put up
all black and white films of stupid looking stuff, and
we were making fun of existing TV. And that was
really one of our major marketing points, was to be
not TV. I mean, you think about in college dorms.
When I was in college, I didn't watch any TV.
It never even occurred to me. There was nothing that
I is, a college student would have wanted to watch
(22:54):
on TV. But when MTV came along, every college student
across the country became glued to the closest TV they
could find that had cable. And you know, I think
Martha's got a really good point is in the afternoons,
it was pro still programmed either for kids, young kids
getting out of school, or it was programmed for uh
(23:18):
the at that time called housewives, assuming all women stayed
at home, soap operas, and so you really didn't have
anything for young adults. Uh And there was very little
young adult programming on TV. And I'd sort of forgotten
about that until Martha said it. But you're exactly right.
Young adults didn't watch TV because there was nothing on
for them, and so when we came along, suddenly we
(23:40):
gave them a reason to watch TV. Had a cable operator.
We we did this ad campaign that said I want
to call your cable company and say I want my MTV,
I want my TV, I want my MTV, I want
my MTV. Cable camp We had to create it because
(24:03):
the cable people didn't want to put it on unless
we had them a lot of money. We didn't have
a lot of money. I had a cable operator come
up to me at some cable convention and furious at me,
and I hate you. Why do you hate me? All
those people are calling me all day long. I can't
get any work done. Wait a minute, they're calling you
to say I want cable. Isn't that good? The answer
(24:26):
was no. We had disrupted the cable business. We had
driven them crazy. They had never had the consumer call
and say I want to channel, and that was really
something new for cable. How amazing is it that I
just can't wrap that around my head that there was
nothing on TV for young adults. Yeah, me neither. But
if you think about it, if you know, even today,
(24:48):
if the only networks that existed today were ABC, CBS,
and NBC. You you know, like there'd be whole detO
graphics that would just check out because they're not even today,
I don't think they're really making programming those those networks
are not making programming for that age group. So, like,
(25:09):
it's so crazy to think that cable channel was like
punk and badass and counter culture, like because now we
think of you know, any network television as like boring
or vanilla or like who even watches like that anymore? Well,
and but remember cable TV is that's not public airwaves,
(25:31):
and so they could get away with a lot more.
And so it does seem like it seemed like the
perfect place to to do something experimental like this. Okay,
so that was actually just part one. We continue our
conversation about MTV VJs, So check it out in the
next episode next week, or if you're listening to this
(25:54):
in the future, just go ahead and check out the
next episode right now. Okay, is Jason one of the
creators of job slete Who was your favorite MTV v
J Find us on Twitter at job slete pod and
let us know. Everyone here would like to thank our
expert guests. Martha Quinn, original MTV VJ host of the
(26:16):
Martha Quinn Morning Show on I Heart eighties at one
oh three seven in San Francisco, and Bob Pittman, the
chairman and CEO of I Heart Media, Inc. Who is
also the co founder and programmer who led the team
that created MTV. Job Slete is produced for I Heart
Radio by Zellet manufacturing hand forged podcasts for You. It's
(26:41):
hosted by Helen Hong and Matt beat. The show was
conceived and produced by Jason Elliott, Hey, That's Me, Steve's Marky,
and Anthony Savini. Our editor is Tommy Nichol. Our researcher
is Amelia Pulka. Additional sound engineering by John Norton. Our
production coordinator is Angie Hymus. Theme music is by the
(27:02):
mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Extra special thanks this week to Mangesh
Hatigater and Susanne Kaufman for all their work clearing licenses
for our MTV episodes, and as always, thanks to our
I Heart Radio team, Katrina Norville, nikkiatur Ali, Cantor, Will
Pearson and Connald Byrne. If you like job Sleete, could
(27:25):
you do us a favor and tell a friend, maybe
even leave us a nice review. On iTunes. It's the
best way to support the show. You'd be amazed how
much it helps sell
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