BRIDGING THE TELEVISION GAP

Last month P. Diddy launched a new television station that promises to provide viewers of this generation the people who “define culture and influence society”. To be the new #1 name in music and to play the position that the original MTV use to play for artists in the genre of music videos.

History shows that MTV (originally an initialism of Music Television) broke many grounds in the television landscape on August 1, 1981. The purpose of the channel was to play music videos with personalities that would be tv versions of the traditional disc jockeys (DJs) that would eventually be known as video jockeys (VJs). The demographic at the time was suited for the young adults of the 80’s, but would evolve into also targeting adolescents. MTV is a unit of Viacom Media Networks.

Michael Jackson in 1983 reinvented MTV with his classic Billie Jean music video that changed the landscape of music television forever as he perfected the story and execution of a short film. Michael Jackson would even take the song and video to greater popularity with his once in a lifetime performance on Motown 25 special with introducing the masses to the moonwalk. The “King of Pop” didn’t stop there with his creativity and magic as he took it a big leap further with the Thriller music video which was a masterpiece that launched MTV into the stratosphere.

According to statements documented by Wikipedia the color barrier was broken through

Michael Jackson:

Breaking the "color barrier" (1981-1983)

Michael Jackson, whose discography included important music videos such as "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller".

During MTV's first few years on the air, very few black artists were included in rotation on the channel. The select few who were in MTV's rotation were Prince, Eddy Grant, Donna Summer, Musical Youth, and Herbie Hancock. The very first non-white act played on MTV was the British band The Specials, which featured an integrated line-up of white and black musicians and vocalists. The Specials' video "Rat Race" was played as the 58th video on the station's first day of broadcasting.[31]

MTV rejected other black artists' videos, such as Rick James' "Super Freak", because they didn't fit the channel's carefully selected AOR format at the time. The exclusion enraged James; he publicly advocated the addition of more black artists' videos on the channel. Rock legend David Bowie also questioned MTV's 'lack of negro artists' during an on-air interview with VJ Mark Goodman in 1983.[32] MTV's original head of talent and acquisition, Carolyn B. Baker, who was black, had questioned why the definition of music had to be so narrow, as had a few others outside the network. "The party line at MTV was that we weren't playing black music because of the "research"," said Baker years later. "But the research was based on ignorance... we were young, we were cutting edge. We didn't have to be on the cutting edge of racism." Nevertheless, it was Baker who had personally rejected Rick James' video for Super Freak "because there were half-naked women in it, and it was a piece of crap. As a black woman, I did not want that representing my people as the first black video on MTV."[33]

The network's director of music programming Buzz Brindle told an interviewer in 2006, “MTV was originally designed to be a rock music channel. It was difficult for MTV to find African American artists whose music fit the channel’s format that leaned toward rock at the outset.” Writers Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum noted that the channel "aired videos by plenty of white artists who didn't play rock." Andrew Goodwin later wrote, "[MTV] denied racism, on the grounds that it merely followed the rules of the rock business (which were, nonetheless, the consequence of a long history of racism)."[34] MTV senior executive vice president Les Garland complained decades later, "The worst thing was that "racism" bullshit... there were hardly any videos being made by black artists. Record companies weren't funding them. They never got charged with racism."

Before 1983, Michael Jackson also struggled to receive airtime on MTV.[35] To resolve the struggle and finally "break the color barrier," the president of CBS Records at the time, Walter Yetnikoff, denounced MTV in a strong, profane statement, threatening to take away MTV's ability to play any of the record label's music videos.[35][36] However, Les Garland, then acquisitions head, said he decided to air Jackson's "Billie Jean" video without pressure from CBS.[32] This was contradicted by CBS head of Business Affairs David Benjamin in Vanity Fair.[11]

According to The Austin Chronicle, Jackson's video for the song "Billie Jean" was "the video that broke the color barrier, even though the channel itself was responsible for erecting that barrier in the first place."[37] But change was not immediate. "Billie Jean" was not added to MTV's "medium rotation" playlist (two to three airings per day) until after it had already reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. A month later, it was bumped up into "heavy rotation," one week before the MTV debut of Jackson's "Beat It" video. Both videos were played several times a day for the next two months; by early summer, the channel had ceased playing either song. But the impact was permanent. When Jackson's elaborate video for "Thriller" was released late in the year, the network's support for it was total, leading to a lengthy partnership with Jackson that helped other black music artists, including Prince, Whitney Houston, and Jackson's younger sister Janet Jackson.[38]

Jonathan Cohen of Billboard magazine observed that Janet Jackson's "accessible sound and spectacularly choreographed videos were irresistible to MTV, and helped the channel evolve from rock programming to a broader, beat-driven musical mix."[39] Eventually, videos from the emerging genre of rap and hip hop would also begin to enter rotation on MTV. A majority of the rap artists appearing on MTV in the mid-1980s, such as Run-DMC, The Fat Boys, Whodini, L.L. Cool J and the Beastie Boys, were from the East Coast.

Video director Don Letts has a different view of the timeline, saying, "People often say "Billie Jean" was the first black music video on MTV. "Pass the Dutchie" was first. Because they were little and spoke in funny British accents, Musical Youth were deemed as non-threatening, and therefore non-black."

Since in the television world the color barrier was only just breaking down in the 1970’s with such shows as The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Sanford and Son there was still a need from the urban audience to see a channel ran by its own. This is where BET (Black Entertainment Television) stepped in during the year 1983 which coincidentally became a full fledged channel the same time Michael Jackson was making waves over at MTV. The channel was originally a two hour block of programming on the Nickelodean Channel.

BET's programming originally had various forms of entertainment such as comedy, music, public affairs and news programming including ComicView, Video Soul with Donnie Simpson, Video Vibrations, Softones, Screen Scene, Unreal/Planet Groove/Caribbean Rhythms, Jam Zone/Cita's World; Teen Summit; and BET News with Ed Gordon, Lead Story, BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley and BET Nightly News.

In 2005, Johnson retired from the network, turning over his titles as president and chief executive officer to former BET vice president Debra L. Lee. A little history lesson on the man who created the first black owned television station is warranted as he was born in 1946 in Hickory, Mississippi, the ninth out of ten children to Edna and Archie Johnson.[3][4] His mother was a schoolteacher and his father a farmer.[3] His parents moved the family Freeport, Illinois when he was a child.[3] He attended Freeport High School, where he was an honors student.[3][4] Johnson graduated from the University of Illinois in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in social studies.[3][4] While at the University of Illinois, Johnson was a member of the Beta chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.[4] He received a master’s degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University in 1972.[3][4]

In 1985 the channel made its first profit and it became the first black-controlled company listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1991.[11][13] In 1998, Johnson and Liberty Media bought all outstanding shares of the company.[13][14] This purchase gave Johnson 42% of the company.[13][14] Viacom acquired BET in 2000 for a reported $3 billion.[3][11][13] Johnson remained BET CEO until 2006.

The year 2007 marked a change in direction for the network as it launched two more music-oriented networks, BET Hip-Hop and BET Gospel. BET also launched a batch of original programming by this time, including reality shows Baldwin Hills and Hell Date, competition show Sunday Best, and town hall-style discussion show Hip Hop vs. America. The station continued to create original programming ever since.

As with anything many people feel BET lost its urban edge along the way in terms of having a diversified list of programming that caters to different demographics. In turn of these events many also felt the channel has lost its appeal to certain members of the African-American audiences.

With the explosion of the internet and easy access of audiences being able to pick and choose what they want to watch and when(which was the huge advantage television had in its early days which caused record breaking viewership for many broadcasts) today’s generation may not feel that a station such as the original MTV is needed. I mean why wait until the station decides when you can watch a music video when you can get it at your own time and disposal on the internet. With that said there is something larger than life with television that you can’t get with any other medium and P. Diddy believes he can bridge the gap of instant gratification with larger than life television programming that many say is missing in today’s generation. What do you think?

Can The Revolt television network bring back the magic of the days of being highly anticipated for a music video’s debut such as the days of Michael Jackson in the 80’s? Can this station do for underground artists what MTV did in the 80’s with breaking the color barrier for urban artists who were not being seen on a national level? Only time will tell.

Paul Austin is the American Life/Music writer for www.worldwideentertainmenttv.com

• ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l Eng, Dinah (November 9, 2012). "Bob Johnson moves way beyond BET". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved September 21, 2013.

• ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Perl, Peter (December 14, 1997). "His Way". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 21, 2013.

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