We got HBO in 1982 but we couldn't get cable until 1988 due to a corrupt local politician who was helping the mob establish their own cable company, thus Queens got redlined, if you lived north of Queens Boulevard you could have cable, unfortunately I lived south of QB. I was resigned to Friday Night Videos and whatever scraps I could get off of it.
I had a few friends who lived just outside the city limits and thus barely out of reach as to where the cable companies would install cable. They too lived off of Friday Night Videos. Whenever we would talk about something they hadn't seen it would remind me how much MTV was a part of our culture.
OMG, Friday Night Videos!! Growing up in Canada, we did not have MTV - we had MuchMusic which was basically the same only with much more CanCon (Canadian content). But FNV aired on one of the Seattle channels I recall (as my city is very close to Seattle, Washington).
I also remember "Good Rockin' Tonight" hosted by Terry David Mulligan, another video show and there was an after-school video show in the mid-80s called Video Hits. I was a teenager during all of this (high school grad '85), so I eagerly ate up all this content!
I have seen clips from Much Music and it was much more wholesome than MTV, which at least in the early days felt edgy. A lot of those other video shows played the same music videos that MTV did but as time went on, people at school would talk about the other stuff on MTV like the VJs and the contests and the other shows they began to make. That's the stuff you couldn't get anywhere else. I often think about how many songs we think of as one hit wonders that we only know because MTV played them. Those shows really did help shape our culture back then.
For years in Paris, TX, MTV was just a little too edgy to make it onto the cable menu but we did have TBS Night Tracks, and I'd sit up into the wee hours, tape recorder at the ready to capture all that goodness...
Oh yeah, Night Tracks was good, too! I have cousins who live in Antlers, OK and they could not get MTV down there, either. When we would go visit I would fill a 6-hour VHS tape with recordings from MTV and take it down to them.
We had cable tv with Mtv in our living room, but we couldn't watch it after a certain time. For a night owl like me, once I got a TV of my own I never missed Friday Night Videos. It might have been in B&W, but it was still pretty great.
I stopped watching around 1986. Lost interest in the music and the format.
Yes! Watching MTV was completely different when sitting in the same room with your family than when you were in your room! I had a small black and white television for a while that I would watch late night shows on when I was supposed to be asleep. I think everyone hit that age where they began to find new music from other venues like friends and magazines and pop culture, but in those early days especially for a kid like me in the Midwest it was a great way to feel connected with the rest of the world.
We got HBO in 1982 but we couldn't get cable until 1988 due to a corrupt local politician who was helping the mob establish their own cable company, thus Queens got redlined, if you lived north of Queens Boulevard you could have cable, unfortunately I lived south of QB. I was resigned to Friday Night Videos and whatever scraps I could get off of it.
I had a few friends who lived just outside the city limits and thus barely out of reach as to where the cable companies would install cable. They too lived off of Friday Night Videos. Whenever we would talk about something they hadn't seen it would remind me how much MTV was a part of our culture.
OMG, Friday Night Videos!! Growing up in Canada, we did not have MTV - we had MuchMusic which was basically the same only with much more CanCon (Canadian content). But FNV aired on one of the Seattle channels I recall (as my city is very close to Seattle, Washington).
I also remember "Good Rockin' Tonight" hosted by Terry David Mulligan, another video show and there was an after-school video show in the mid-80s called Video Hits. I was a teenager during all of this (high school grad '85), so I eagerly ate up all this content!
Thanks for the major flashback, Rob!
I have seen clips from Much Music and it was much more wholesome than MTV, which at least in the early days felt edgy. A lot of those other video shows played the same music videos that MTV did but as time went on, people at school would talk about the other stuff on MTV like the VJs and the contests and the other shows they began to make. That's the stuff you couldn't get anywhere else. I often think about how many songs we think of as one hit wonders that we only know because MTV played them. Those shows really did help shape our culture back then.
For years in Paris, TX, MTV was just a little too edgy to make it onto the cable menu but we did have TBS Night Tracks, and I'd sit up into the wee hours, tape recorder at the ready to capture all that goodness...
Oh yeah, Night Tracks was good, too! I have cousins who live in Antlers, OK and they could not get MTV down there, either. When we would go visit I would fill a 6-hour VHS tape with recordings from MTV and take it down to them.
We had cable tv with Mtv in our living room, but we couldn't watch it after a certain time. For a night owl like me, once I got a TV of my own I never missed Friday Night Videos. It might have been in B&W, but it was still pretty great.
I stopped watching around 1986. Lost interest in the music and the format.
Yes! Watching MTV was completely different when sitting in the same room with your family than when you were in your room! I had a small black and white television for a while that I would watch late night shows on when I was supposed to be asleep. I think everyone hit that age where they began to find new music from other venues like friends and magazines and pop culture, but in those early days especially for a kid like me in the Midwest it was a great way to feel connected with the rest of the world.