The Rise Of MTV And The Video Industry

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Music videos began to rise in the 1980 's and ever since then have had a long lasting effect on both the music and television industries. One of music videos most groundbreaking successes was that of MTV, which had a monolithic appearance in the cable TV industry and in American culture. However, MTV as a channel is now that of a dying one. The music video industry continues to thrive due to the developments, expansions, and improvements in technology over the years. In this Post-Network Era, different methods of distribution, for example, YouTube, has allowed there to be a much growth in regards to music videos. Music videos are no longer made by just big television network corporations. They are also made by regular people that can get their …show more content…

By 1984 the audience had grown to 22 million, the age range was between 12 and 34, and advertising revenue had reached over one million dollars a week (Kaplan). MTV’s golden age was between the years 1981 to 1992, it began with a very gimmicky way to fill the cable channel. MTV was seen as a random thing that was made to fill up some space within television . Their content cost them nothing, and at this time period music videos were free advertisements, so it was very easy to profit off of them. By the end of 1983, the channel had profited an estimate of $20 million in advertisement revenue. In 1984 the channel made more than one million dollars a week just from advertising revenue alone, with an audience of 18 to 22 million. (Kaplan) MTV had 100 videos to show and planned to get the rest of these videos for free. The new acts MTV presented had to be outrageous or beautiful, showy videos, and with this channel came new stars such as Duran, Duran, and Madonna. Almost none of the artists were American, they were mostly Canadian. The mood of the videos that were being shown were very Monty Python-esque videos. The rise and popularity of MTV created a whole new generation of artist that would have never existed if it weren’t for these first few music videos in the

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