April 15, 2021 • 29 mins
In 1981, the world was introduced to Music Television, and the job of video jockey, or VJ, was born.
In this second 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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, jobs leader's your host Matt Here. You're listening to
part two of a special two part episode about MTV.
If you haven't heard part one yet, go back and
check it out, or just dive right in. I'm not
the boss of you. That's it. That's the whole intro.
So no puns this week, unfortunately, let's just jump right
into it an episode. We're doing a job slete episode
(00:23):
and you're doing an intro with no punt. Oh my,
I need to flip a table. Does anyone have a
table I can flip? I'm Mark Quinn in Musical Comting
NonStop on MTV. Needed Television New It's your stereo system
(00:44):
you right after Alan? So why did MTV have VJs?
Why not just play the music? Here's Bob Pittman, one
of the creators of MTV. I can give you the
whole philosophy. It's really rooted in radio and at kids.
Mark that said, I came out of radio that what
you're really, what people bond too, is a human being,
(01:06):
not a thing. And what they really we're watching MTV
for was very much a radio like experience, which is
first and foremost companionship. We're hanging out together I can't
hang out with a robot, I can't hang out with
a music video. I can hang out with a person.
And by the way, when something happens, they attribute it
(01:27):
to the person, because we're human beings and we're building
a personal relationship. They are the friend sitting in that
empty seat next to you in the car every day.
They're your friends sitting on the counter talking to you
while you're brushing your teeth, are getting ready in the morning.
They're your friend talking to you while you're cooking. And
so what we we wanted to do is we wanted
(01:48):
to replicate that experience, and so you needed a person
to do that. And indeed, when we and by the way,
we have plenty of people say why our board say
why are you spending money on all those people and
that set and everything when it's just the music videos,
Like I no, no no, the music videos are just a
part of the programming. The other part of the programming
(02:09):
is probably the most essential part, and we can't do
it without the building blocks. But the most essential part
are the people, the human relationship. And indeed, when we
started doing the first amount of research and say why
do you like him? Do I love Martha? Quend Why
do you like Martha Quen love the music she's played?
She didn't pick the music. Love that contest she did,
She didn't do the contest. Love that piece of information.
(02:29):
Get that she didn't do that information. It was but
they attributed everything they loved about MTV to the human
beings they were interfacing with. And so that's why we
needed the VJs and the vjas were in essets, the
central point, the focal point. It's where the rubber met
the road, and it was very important that we put
(02:50):
together people who were very likable but conveyed the attitude
we were trying to convey. That's so interesting because I
feel like there is something about what he was just
saying about needing the personality that's like a precursor to podcasting, right,
don't you think like there's a reason why we you know,
(03:12):
one of the biggest reasons why we are gravitated towards
the podcast that we like is because we like the hosts.
Wink Wink, nudge, nudge listener. Helen and I are your
friends sitting in the backseat right now, so yeah, we're
talking you well. And then YouTube of course really as well,
Like with my YouTube channel. I find that like they
(03:34):
come not just for the history videos but and to learn.
But they're like, because yeah, I'm somebody that they I
guess they like, and yeah, it's always about that personal
connection that you could just never like. Yeah, I couldn't
imagine like MTV without VJs just oh, I don't know
if anybody would have watched it. Yeah, there's something soulless.
(03:55):
If they had just played music videos seven without any
person being like, hey, guys, would you think of that?
Hey guys, wasn't that a cool video? Like I don't
know if necessarily would have taken off, like you said,
because it would have been kind of soulless. I can't
even imagine how hard it must have been to like
(04:18):
pick the first VJs if this had never been a
job before, for a medium that had never existed before.
It's like the wild wild West, and they're like, Okay,
we're creating this job. What what should this person be?
And and you know, I wonder how they picked the
first VJs. Here's Martha Quinn, one of the original MTV VJs,
(04:40):
to explain m Okay, I went to n y U
and while I was there, I worked at the radio
station w n y U. Remember I had no idea
about MTV. I woke up in the morning, I went
to my job working at Weinstein Dorm. So I was
wearing a T shirt, shorts and g means. Then I
(05:01):
stopped by w NBC. Bert Stein happened to be there.
Everybody was chit chatting. Buzz turned to me and said,
you should be a VJ on MTV. Within thirty five minutes,
I was in a cab going to that audition. I
did not have mess s gara on, I did not
have lip gloss on, nothing. I just walked in literally
(05:22):
in the clothes I got up in the morning to
go work at Weinstein in And the other part of
this is this is pre cell phones, so that Bob
Pittman would pick up the phone himself. It's kind of miraculous.
It's like our freight trains of fate collided. But it
was the greatest thing ever. I mean, we were such
believers in rock and roll on television, in this new genre,
(05:50):
this new disruptor that we were all involved with. We
were so passionate. I used to say we were rebels
with a cause. Seven We believed in what we were doing.
It was really wonderful, and Bob was mentioning the diverse
group of DJs we are still today family, and I
think that extends to everybody who was there in the
(06:11):
early days of MTV getting it off the ground. Those
are the times, the struggling, the coming up, times that
people reflect back on as one of the fondest times
in their lives and that really brings people together. And
that was the early days of MTV for everyone who
was involved at that point. It's so interesting hearing her
(06:33):
talk about, like, you know, working really hard and like
not really knowing what the job was and kind of
creating the job from the ground up. It very There's
so many parallels to me about YouTube, right like at
the beginning of YouTube, like what even was a YouTuber?
What even was a YouTube channel? What was the YouTube
(06:53):
video supposed to be? And that must have been what
it was like for the mtvv js, Like if this
is a job that had never existed in a medium
that had never existed, You're like, Wow, let's what are
we doing. Let's try this, or let's try this, or
this is working and this isn't working. And you can
go online now and find a lot of that old
footage of MTV in the early days. However, they a
(07:16):
lot of that stuff is lost, those awkward moments where
they played the wrong song or there was like just
they were stumbling through introductions and announcements, and but I
what you do still see, like the stuff that remains.
What I noticed is the passion, Like that you can
tell that they really love their job and they're just
(07:38):
so excited to be there. We would get up in
the morning, and this was before it was a well
oiled machine. We would get up in the morning, go
to the studio, all five of us sharing a teeny
tiny dressing room, and we would work watching the videos.
You know, we didn't actually watch the videos in real
(08:00):
time because to pay a television production crew, cameramen, audio guys,
video guys to sit there and watch videos didn't make
a whole lot of sense. So we would do our
segments back to back, but we would watch all of
the videos in the quote unquote jock lounge, and we
would just work constantly researching artists. And this was before
(08:24):
there was an internet, so we had just stacks of
Rolling Stone magazines, Billboard magazines, every kind of rock and
roll encyclopedia Trouser Press books that we could find. WHOA.
My mind is blown because I totally thought it was
live in real time. Did you know that it was
not live in real time, that they were watching them
(08:45):
on a totally different day. I had no idea. Oh
that's crazy, but I guess it makes sense, Like you
wouldn't have to write if you if you if you
watch the videos beforehand and you're just reacting to the
videos or reacting to like, Hey, wasn't it amazing? Isn't
it amazing how his hair looked in that video or whatever,
like you could just do it whenever and then just
(09:08):
and then just drop those segments in later. Yeah, and
DJs today, of course, that still exists. They pre record
almost everything except for like the big time morning shows.
Every other DJ records their stuff ahead of time, and
that that also probably is a surprise to most people.
I'm surprised by that as well. I thought it was
(09:29):
all live. Yeah, I know, like I recorded some of
my stuff and that was back in two thousand and five.
So oh man, this is just man, Like you're telling me,
Sam is not real. And we would just sit there
(09:57):
and work and share stories and get on camera and
figure out what it meant to be a VJ, what
that meant to talk on camera casually about music, to
not be Johnny Carson? You know? What did this mean?
How do we keep it fresh? What exactly are we
doing here? Now? When you you know, anybody who goes
(10:18):
into audition for MTV, now, let's say, if that even happens,
I don't even know I would know what that meant.
But back then it was a whole nobody had been
a VJ before. What do you even do? What do
you how does this even work? I mean in the beginning,
it was a very small, hay kids, let's put on
a show kind of feeling. You know, if you go
(10:41):
back and you google the first hour of MTV, it's different.
It's not the real first hour. It's history has been rewritten.
And I don't know why they've done this. That's breaking
news right there. What do you think about that? I
feel like I have to google the first hour of MTV?
Is what I feel? What? What does she mean? What
(11:03):
you're what you're searching online is not what you find
online today? Is not actually the first hour of MTV.
They went back and edited it to make it seem
like it wouldn't feel bad. Yeah, they actually saying the
first hour of MTV was actually like everything that could
go wrong went wrong, you know, when that first rocket
blasted off, and then the Buggles played, and then of
(11:26):
course there was a technical difficulty and they put the
order of the VJs in the wrong order. So it
was supposed to be that Mark Goodman would come on
and go, hey, this is MTV, welcome, this is a
new thing, and then it would go through each of
the VJs, and then the last VJ who was going
to say something was Alan Hunter, and he because he
(11:47):
was the last, he said and I'm Alan Hunter. The
tapes got mixed up. So rocket blasts off, it's the
Buggles VJ tapes go in. First tape that's played is
Al Going and I'm Alan Hunter. And they've changed that,
They've put the tapes in the right order. And I
(12:08):
don't know why they do that, because that's the beauty
of the early days of MTV, That's the beauty of
it that it wasn't slick, it wasn't a well oiled machine.
I feel like that so much of TV and YouTube
and our culture now, TikTok, everything is about that authenticity
(12:32):
of like not being too slick and not being perfectly prepared,
and maybe MTV had a hand in influencing our culture
in that direction. You want to have this, I guess
s myth. But at the same time, yeah, the more
endearing thing is the awkwardness in the authenticity. It sounds
(12:54):
like a little thing, but now everyone would know how
to do it. But back then, we didn't know how
to be casual and talking on camera for hours on end.
I mean we were on camp. You know, we were
in people's living rooms for five hours at a time,
seven days a week. There wasn't week day VJs and
week end VJs. We were on all the time. I
(13:18):
would have people coming up to me in the street,
you know, rather than saying like excuse me, Martha, could
I people would be like, hey, listen, I don't really
like that a haircut you got. It's like excuse me.
Because people just felt like I was their sister. That
is so cool. Like, first of all, it's kind of
(13:38):
crazy that there were week day VJs or weekend VJs.
It was just those five people around the clock. That's crazy,
Like that's wow. I hope they got paid well. But also,
you know, I think our generation met like we grew
up more listening to like Tiara, you know, like maybe
TRLS a little bit later, but like, can you imagine
(14:00):
Carson daily on on TIRA, Like he's super casual and
he's like, hey, guys, you know that was bloody blood
and like check this out. Like there's a there's a
way of presenting now that is super casual that we're
all very familiar with as a culture that I can't
believe that they had to kind of create that because
(14:20):
before then everything was very formal, right, yeah, and I
think it just naturally worked out that way. So you've
got this channel that plays music videos twenty four hours
a day, seven days a week, but still a lot
of record labels and even musicians are not quite sure
about this is they're not quite sure this is something
that will help them. And I think at MTV we
(14:44):
took a whole new group of artists. They called it
the Second British Invasion. One of the reasons we had
the Second British Invasion is because American artists didn't produce
as many videos as the British artists did. Because they
sent around a lot of videos in Europe for TV shows.
To get exposure in the US, they used this very
robust network of radio stations to get exposure, so they
(15:06):
outnumbered proportionately the American artist So suddenly they had this
irrational share of the videos on MTV, and as a result,
those artists started breaking and we could see a direct correlation.
We also saw the impact on fashion because the TV
broadcast TV have been operating under least objectionable programming theory
(15:29):
don't take a chance, don't stand out, so everything sort
of looked like the lowest common denominator Middle America was
suddenly on MTV was showing people with the fashions look
like in New York, in London, in l A, how
people really dress, how the artists dress when they're in
the dressing room, and it and fashion started following that. Wow,
that's so crazy to think. At the very beginning, the
(15:51):
record labels would be like, are you gonna pay us
to make the video? Like? Because if you, Because nowadays
we think of music videos as like one of the
biggest market strategies, right, it's a way to drive Sills'
is like, oh that video dropped, Oh that song is fire,
Like I gotta download, I gotta buy it. But it's
so crazy to think that they weren't thinking on that
level at that point. So vj's actually became quite influential
(16:17):
and kind of keymakers. I can pretty much take credit
for Bruce Springsteen's career though, because he was one of
those artists like Bob Dylan who was saying, oh, I
don't need to do videos. They had their existing career.
They were like, oh, we don't need to do that.
You know, that is for the newer those newer artists
(16:40):
like those people from England, we don't need to do that.
And uh. One night I was in a restaurant in
New York City and I was with my parents and
I see Bruce Springsteen come in and I lean over
to my dad and I said, oh my god, there's
Bruce Springsteen. And he says, who's that? And I said,
oh my god, dad, Time Magazine's Man of the Year
and sitting down next to us, and Bruce Springsteen leaned
(17:03):
over to me and said, hey, Martha, I don't like
that haircut. No, I'm kidding. He leaned over to me
and said, hey, aren't you that girl on MTV? Don't
I see you on MTV? And I said that's more
than I can say for you. When are you going
to make a video? And he turns out he was
in the studio recording born in the USA, and of
(17:25):
course he did make all those videos. So I'm just saying,
I'm pretty sure I influenced Bruce Springsteen in answer to
your question. So in that scenario, I think I was
a kidmaker. That's crazy that Bruce Springsteen at the beginning
was like who needs videos? And like it's so crazy
(17:47):
that like that. I mean, good on her for being
quick on her feet to be like, yeah, what about you?
Though she was the boss a particular moment that defined
(18:10):
being a VJ. Well, I would have to say perhaps
that defining moment for everyone at MTV Welcome to the
World Wide Live Aid Concert, because that's when it all
came together. We believed that we could change the world,
and I believe that live age showed that Bob's vision
(18:34):
of music and television joining together absolutely changed the world.
Come to a massive, totally unprecedented coming together of all
the people's of all worlds in support of our neighbors
in Africa. So for the next sixteen hours, we'll all
be enjoying what can only be characterized as the hottest
(18:54):
acts in music today, and they are Crosby Stills and Nash,
Tom Petty and you know it's interesting on Live Aid too.
It was that moment in which we mattered. Bob Geldoff
had done something called band aid and got an artist
together to raise money, you know, to to fight hunger
in Africa, and he came I named Chip Racklan, who
(19:17):
ran acquisitions for US, brought Bob Geldoff into my office
and said, look, Bob is going to do this big thing,
bigger than band Aid, a real big concert, and he's
going to wants to us to buy the rights or
either HBO and you, and he'll use that money he
gets from that license feed to help the cause. Well,
(19:39):
I'd love to think I'm completely altruistic, which there was
some of it there, But also we didn't have the
money to bid against HBO for a concert. So I said,
you know, I sort of combined the two need and
what I thought was best and said, you know, I
have an idea. Instead of doing a concert and selling
the rights, which is typically what had happened in the past,
(20:00):
why don't we do it. We'll produce it with you
and we'll make the feed available to any television outlet
that wants to carry it, and the only thing we'll
ask is that will ask for donations throughout the show,
which you know I had ever done. And and as
it worked out is that's what happened. And we did
(20:21):
it in Philly and London. We sent half our people
to the UK and half of our people were in
in Philly and we did donations and ABC came in
and offered some money, but they couldn't do donations on
the air, so they wanted a couple of hours of exclusive,
which we said okay and uh, and we carried the
rest of it, like you know, around the clock, and
(20:44):
I think Martha, we raised something like sixty million dollars,
which at that time was stunning. No one had ever
done anything like that with people calling in. And this
wasn't the days when you could text it, not the
days when you could email. You actually had to get
on the phone and call somebody and make a pledge.
Very complicated process. And so it turned out they raised
(21:04):
a lot more money they would ever made by licensing it.
And for us, we managed to be in the center
of live AI driving it as opposed to somebody on
the periphery carrying a concert done by somebody else. But
that was so important MTV. We need to be in it,
not presenting it, not carrying it. For those who don't
(21:24):
know what Live AID is, it's it was basically a
benefit concert that broadcast around the world. Over fifty nations
all watched this live. So we're talking yeah, of the
world's population tuned into this thing, one point nine billion people. Yeah,
(21:46):
but yeah, it was a it was the first time
we saw something of this magnitude. We we did see
benefit concerts before, but this was truly worldwide. And of
course afterwards this became more common and to see these
big benefit concerts. But but MTV actually co produced Live
Aid and had a huge influence on how this uh
(22:09):
got out there. And so yeah, that's why it's a
it's a big moment for them. We're actually we actually
have a special guest here with us, our beloved producer Jason.
Thanks for joining us today. Thank you for letting me
come and crash the party. I think the biggest impact
(22:30):
that MTV had was just on how we saw each other.
They started to expand and you've got shows like Yo
MTV Raps, which it's not uh too much to say
that that is probably the main reason that RAPP got
to the mainstream success and ultimate domination that it did.
(22:52):
You know, hip hop and R and B and all
of that, and then you had that right next to
the headbangers ball, you know, a bunch of metal bands
that would have just aid in the basement otherwise, and
a twenty minutes all of these other types of so
the college rock really what people called it at the time,
but things like goth and punk, and basically the reason
that I started a goth punk industrial magazine is because
(23:13):
in the mid eighties as a kid, I got to
see these bands for the first time sitting there in Iowa,
and suddenly all these different groups of people are seeing
each other and able to relate to each other and
get why they like what they like, and you start
actually getting some idea of a youth culture that really
um is unified across the country. And I think that's
(23:36):
probably one of the biggest impacts MTV has had. Wow,
that's mind boggling. That's good. But ultimately this whole period
does end. You know, MTV, for all of the influence
that it had, it had about a ten year Golden era, right,
and then the reality shows started coming on, but they
(23:56):
started showing more of these, and the truth is that's
where they started making their money. There just was not
as much money in advertising for nothing but music videos.
And so eventually, as cable started proliferating and there were
more and more things to watch and it was harder
to get the eyeballs and you had to get the
money in, they started putting on more original programming until
(24:18):
you got to the time of the nineties and things
like that. So eventually the VJ wasn't necessarily needed. I
mean I have I don't think I've said the word
VJ ever in my life until this episode. I don't
think I've thought of the word VJ. It's not even
(24:39):
a word, right, Like, I don't think I've even said
or thought about the title VJ until doing this episode.
I can't think of anyone who would be like a
modern era VJ. Can you met? Well, I would say
the spirit of the VJ certainly lives on. I mean,
we don't call them VJs. But and when I say
(25:00):
a spirit, I'm also talking about like any influencer on
the Internet who has this strong connection to a community,
like Bob said earlier, they could be in this the
empty seat next to you. I mean, that's stronger now
than ever, I would say, especially because we have because
of how fragmented society is now, like all of these
(25:23):
different communities everywhere. Yeah, so in that sense, I would
say they have a VJ spirit. But yeah, I don't
think I don't think what Martha Quinn is talking about
as VJ. I don't think that job exists anymore. I
wasn't there when they stopped playing music on TV, so
I I can't say other than what my friends who
were there say, which is that the world began to
(25:44):
change that videos you not have prerecorded videos, you were
beginning to have video and demand, you had other outlets
on TV, had hundreds of channels of TV. That the
uniqueness of the video had declined. So that was one
I thought about. I was the other was that one
of the reasons why they went to more programs and
(26:05):
less sort of we're just hanging out playing videos is
because the advertiser would pay more money to be in
a show than they would pay for just whenever the
spot ran with some videos. And uh so, one philosophy
is that they did it because the world was changing,
they need to change with it. The other view was
(26:28):
that they did it because they can make more money
doing it. I have no idea which one it was,
and I have no idea what combination it was, but
certainly it's somewhere in there is probably what led to it.
But I think for all of us who were there
in the beginning of the original MTV, it's sad to
look at MTV and not see what we originally started with.
(26:50):
But I maintain when anybody on planet Earth looks at
that logo, what they are thinking of is the original
format of MTV. And Bob you were saying that they
changed for a variety of reasons, basically coming down to,
you know, the consumer spoke. They wanted something different, advertisers
(27:13):
wanted something different. And I would like to propose to
MTV that I'm hearing so much the people are so
hungry for the old days of MTV. You know, on
my radio station in San Francisco, we're all eighties music
all the time. So obviously my listeners or are biased.
But what I think MTV should do is throw up
(27:36):
their hands and say, Okay, we hear you. You want
your MTV back. That's what we're gonna do, and they
should get Sting and Cyndi Lauper and Pete Townsend to
get to do a whole new campaign. I want my
MTV back, and I think it would crush. Hey, this
(28:04):
is Jason, one of the creators of job Slete who
was your favorite mt V 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 Martha Quinn Morning Show
on I Heart eighties at one oh three seven in
(28:25):
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 hosted by Helen Hong
(28:47):
and Matt beat. The show was conceived and produced by
Jason Elliott. Hey, that's me as Steve's Marky and Anthony Savini.
Our editor is Tommy Nichol. Our researcher is Amelia Polka.
Additional sound engineering by John Norton. Our production coordinator is
Angie Hymis. Theme music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder.
(29:10):
Extra special thanks this week to mong Gesh 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 Sleet, could you do
(29:30):
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 se
Hey, jobs leader's your host Matt Here. You're listening to
part two of a special two part episode about MTV.
If you haven't heard part one yet, go back and
check it out, or just dive right in. I'm not
the boss of you. That's it. That's the whole intro.
So no puns this week, unfortunately, let's just jump right
into it an episode. We're doing a job slete episode
(00:23):
and you're doing an intro with no punt. Oh my,
I need to flip a table. Does anyone have a
table I can flip? I'm Mark Quinn in Musical Comting
NonStop on MTV. Needed Television New It's your stereo system
(00:44):
you right after Alan? So why did MTV have VJs?
Why not just play the music? Here's Bob Pittman, one
of the creators of MTV. I can give you the
whole philosophy. It's really rooted in radio and at kids.
Mark that said, I came out of radio that what
you're really, what people bond too, is a human being,
(01:06):
not a thing. And what they really we're watching MTV
for was very much a radio like experience, which is
first and foremost companionship. We're hanging out together I can't
hang out with a robot, I can't hang out with
a music video. I can hang out with a person.
And by the way, when something happens, they attribute it
(01:27):
to the person, because we're human beings and we're building
a personal relationship. They are the friend sitting in that
empty seat next to you in the car every day.
They're your friends sitting on the counter talking to you
while you're brushing your teeth, are getting ready in the morning.
They're your friend talking to you while you're cooking. And
so what we we wanted to do is we wanted
(01:48):
to replicate that experience, and so you needed a person
to do that. And indeed, when we and by the way,
we have plenty of people say why our board say
why are you spending money on all those people and
that set and everything when it's just the music videos,
Like I no, no no, the music videos are just a
part of the programming. The other part of the programming
(02:09):
is probably the most essential part, and we can't do
it without the building blocks. But the most essential part
are the people, the human relationship. And indeed, when we
started doing the first amount of research and say why
do you like him? Do I love Martha? Quend Why
do you like Martha Quen love the music she's played?
She didn't pick the music. Love that contest she did,
She didn't do the contest. Love that piece of information.
(02:29):
Get that she didn't do that information. It was but
they attributed everything they loved about MTV to the human
beings they were interfacing with. And so that's why we
needed the VJs and the vjas were in essets, the
central point, the focal point. It's where the rubber met
the road, and it was very important that we put
(02:50):
together people who were very likable but conveyed the attitude
we were trying to convey. That's so interesting because I
feel like there is something about what he was just
saying about needing the personality that's like a precursor to podcasting, right,
don't you think like there's a reason why we you know,
(03:12):
one of the biggest reasons why we are gravitated towards
the podcast that we like is because we like the hosts.
Wink Wink, nudge, nudge listener. Helen and I are your
friends sitting in the backseat right now, so yeah, we're
talking you well. And then YouTube of course really as well,
Like with my YouTube channel. I find that like they
(03:34):
come not just for the history videos but and to learn.
But they're like, because yeah, I'm somebody that they I
guess they like, and yeah, it's always about that personal
connection that you could just never like. Yeah, I couldn't
imagine like MTV without VJs just oh, I don't know
if anybody would have watched it. Yeah, there's something soulless.
(03:55):
If they had just played music videos seven without any
person being like, hey, guys, would you think of that?
Hey guys, wasn't that a cool video? Like I don't
know if necessarily would have taken off, like you said,
because it would have been kind of soulless. I can't
even imagine how hard it must have been to like
(04:18):
pick the first VJs if this had never been a
job before, for a medium that had never existed before.
It's like the wild wild West, and they're like, Okay,
we're creating this job. What what should this person be?
And and you know, I wonder how they picked the
first VJs. Here's Martha Quinn, one of the original MTV VJs,
(04:40):
to explain m Okay, I went to n y U
and while I was there, I worked at the radio
station w n y U. Remember I had no idea
about MTV. I woke up in the morning, I went
to my job working at Weinstein Dorm. So I was
wearing a T shirt, shorts and g means. Then I
(05:01):
stopped by w NBC. Bert Stein happened to be there.
Everybody was chit chatting. Buzz turned to me and said,
you should be a VJ on MTV. Within thirty five minutes,
I was in a cab going to that audition. I
did not have mess s gara on, I did not
have lip gloss on, nothing. I just walked in literally
(05:22):
in the clothes I got up in the morning to
go work at Weinstein in And the other part of
this is this is pre cell phones, so that Bob
Pittman would pick up the phone himself. It's kind of miraculous.
It's like our freight trains of fate collided. But it
was the greatest thing ever. I mean, we were such
believers in rock and roll on television, in this new genre,
(05:50):
this new disruptor that we were all involved with. We
were so passionate. I used to say we were rebels
with a cause. Seven We believed in what we were doing.
It was really wonderful, and Bob was mentioning the diverse
group of DJs we are still today family, and I
think that extends to everybody who was there in the
(06:11):
early days of MTV getting it off the ground. Those
are the times, the struggling, the coming up, times that
people reflect back on as one of the fondest times
in their lives and that really brings people together. And
that was the early days of MTV for everyone who
was involved at that point. It's so interesting hearing her
(06:33):
talk about, like, you know, working really hard and like
not really knowing what the job was and kind of
creating the job from the ground up. It very There's
so many parallels to me about YouTube, right like at
the beginning of YouTube, like what even was a YouTuber?
What even was a YouTube channel? What was the YouTube
(06:53):
video supposed to be? And that must have been what
it was like for the mtvv js, Like if this
is a job that had never existed in a medium
that had never existed, You're like, Wow, let's what are
we doing. Let's try this, or let's try this, or
this is working and this isn't working. And you can
go online now and find a lot of that old
footage of MTV in the early days. However, they a
(07:16):
lot of that stuff is lost, those awkward moments where
they played the wrong song or there was like just
they were stumbling through introductions and announcements, and but I
what you do still see, like the stuff that remains.
What I noticed is the passion, Like that you can
tell that they really love their job and they're just
(07:38):
so excited to be there. We would get up in
the morning, and this was before it was a well
oiled machine. We would get up in the morning, go
to the studio, all five of us sharing a teeny
tiny dressing room, and we would work watching the videos.
You know, we didn't actually watch the videos in real
(08:00):
time because to pay a television production crew, cameramen, audio guys,
video guys to sit there and watch videos didn't make
a whole lot of sense. So we would do our
segments back to back, but we would watch all of
the videos in the quote unquote jock lounge, and we
would just work constantly researching artists. And this was before
(08:24):
there was an internet, so we had just stacks of
Rolling Stone magazines, Billboard magazines, every kind of rock and
roll encyclopedia Trouser Press books that we could find. WHOA.
My mind is blown because I totally thought it was
live in real time. Did you know that it was
not live in real time, that they were watching them
(08:45):
on a totally different day. I had no idea. Oh
that's crazy, but I guess it makes sense, Like you
wouldn't have to write if you if you if you
watch the videos beforehand and you're just reacting to the
videos or reacting to like, Hey, wasn't it amazing? Isn't
it amazing how his hair looked in that video or whatever,
like you could just do it whenever and then just
(09:08):
and then just drop those segments in later. Yeah, and
DJs today, of course, that still exists. They pre record
almost everything except for like the big time morning shows.
Every other DJ records their stuff ahead of time, and
that that also probably is a surprise to most people.
I'm surprised by that as well. I thought it was
(09:29):
all live. Yeah, I know, like I recorded some of
my stuff and that was back in two thousand and five.
So oh man, this is just man, Like you're telling me,
Sam is not real. And we would just sit there
(09:57):
and work and share stories and get on camera and
figure out what it meant to be a VJ, what
that meant to talk on camera casually about music, to
not be Johnny Carson? You know? What did this mean?
How do we keep it fresh? What exactly are we
doing here? Now? When you you know, anybody who goes
(10:18):
into audition for MTV, now, let's say, if that even happens,
I don't even know I would know what that meant.
But back then it was a whole nobody had been
a VJ before. What do you even do? What do
you how does this even work? I mean in the beginning,
it was a very small, hay kids, let's put on
a show kind of feeling. You know, if you go
(10:41):
back and you google the first hour of MTV, it's different.
It's not the real first hour. It's history has been rewritten.
And I don't know why they've done this. That's breaking
news right there. What do you think about that? I
feel like I have to google the first hour of MTV?
Is what I feel? What? What does she mean? What
(11:03):
you're what you're searching online is not what you find
online today? Is not actually the first hour of MTV.
They went back and edited it to make it seem
like it wouldn't feel bad. Yeah, they actually saying the
first hour of MTV was actually like everything that could
go wrong went wrong, you know, when that first rocket
blasted off, and then the Buggles played, and then of
(11:26):
course there was a technical difficulty and they put the
order of the VJs in the wrong order. So it
was supposed to be that Mark Goodman would come on
and go, hey, this is MTV, welcome, this is a
new thing, and then it would go through each of
the VJs, and then the last VJ who was going
to say something was Alan Hunter, and he because he
(11:47):
was the last, he said and I'm Alan Hunter. The
tapes got mixed up. So rocket blasts off, it's the
Buggles VJ tapes go in. First tape that's played is
Al Going and I'm Alan Hunter. And they've changed that,
They've put the tapes in the right order. And I
(12:08):
don't know why they do that, because that's the beauty
of the early days of MTV, That's the beauty of
it that it wasn't slick, it wasn't a well oiled machine.
I feel like that so much of TV and YouTube
and our culture now, TikTok, everything is about that authenticity
(12:32):
of like not being too slick and not being perfectly prepared,
and maybe MTV had a hand in influencing our culture
in that direction. You want to have this, I guess
s myth. But at the same time, yeah, the more
endearing thing is the awkwardness in the authenticity. It sounds
(12:54):
like a little thing, but now everyone would know how
to do it. But back then, we didn't know how
to be casual and talking on camera for hours on end.
I mean we were on camp. You know, we were
in people's living rooms for five hours at a time,
seven days a week. There wasn't week day VJs and
week end VJs. We were on all the time. I
(13:18):
would have people coming up to me in the street,
you know, rather than saying like excuse me, Martha, could
I people would be like, hey, listen, I don't really
like that a haircut you got. It's like excuse me.
Because people just felt like I was their sister. That
is so cool. Like, first of all, it's kind of
(13:38):
crazy that there were week day VJs or weekend VJs.
It was just those five people around the clock. That's crazy,
Like that's wow. I hope they got paid well. But also,
you know, I think our generation met like we grew
up more listening to like Tiara, you know, like maybe
TRLS a little bit later, but like, can you imagine
(14:00):
Carson daily on on TIRA, Like he's super casual and
he's like, hey, guys, you know that was bloody blood
and like check this out. Like there's a there's a
way of presenting now that is super casual that we're
all very familiar with as a culture that I can't
believe that they had to kind of create that because
(14:20):
before then everything was very formal, right, yeah, and I
think it just naturally worked out that way. So you've
got this channel that plays music videos twenty four hours
a day, seven days a week, but still a lot
of record labels and even musicians are not quite sure
about this is they're not quite sure this is something
that will help them. And I think at MTV we
(14:44):
took a whole new group of artists. They called it
the Second British Invasion. One of the reasons we had
the Second British Invasion is because American artists didn't produce
as many videos as the British artists did. Because they
sent around a lot of videos in Europe for TV shows.
To get exposure in the US, they used this very
robust network of radio stations to get exposure, so they
(15:06):
outnumbered proportionately the American artist So suddenly they had this
irrational share of the videos on MTV, and as a result,
those artists started breaking and we could see a direct correlation.
We also saw the impact on fashion because the TV
broadcast TV have been operating under least objectionable programming theory
(15:29):
don't take a chance, don't stand out, so everything sort
of looked like the lowest common denominator Middle America was
suddenly on MTV was showing people with the fashions look
like in New York, in London, in l A, how
people really dress, how the artists dress when they're in
the dressing room, and it and fashion started following that. Wow,
that's so crazy to think. At the very beginning, the
(15:51):
record labels would be like, are you gonna pay us
to make the video? Like? Because if you, Because nowadays
we think of music videos as like one of the
biggest market strategies, right, it's a way to drive Sills'
is like, oh that video dropped, Oh that song is fire,
Like I gotta download, I gotta buy it. But it's
so crazy to think that they weren't thinking on that
level at that point. So vj's actually became quite influential
(16:17):
and kind of keymakers. I can pretty much take credit
for Bruce Springsteen's career though, because he was one of
those artists like Bob Dylan who was saying, oh, I
don't need to do videos. They had their existing career.
They were like, oh, we don't need to do that.
You know, that is for the newer those newer artists
(16:40):
like those people from England, we don't need to do that.
And uh. One night I was in a restaurant in
New York City and I was with my parents and
I see Bruce Springsteen come in and I lean over
to my dad and I said, oh my god, there's
Bruce Springsteen. And he says, who's that? And I said,
oh my god, dad, Time Magazine's Man of the Year
and sitting down next to us, and Bruce Springsteen leaned
(17:03):
over to me and said, hey, Martha, I don't like
that haircut. No, I'm kidding. He leaned over to me
and said, hey, aren't you that girl on MTV? Don't
I see you on MTV? And I said that's more
than I can say for you. When are you going
to make a video? And he turns out he was
in the studio recording born in the USA, and of
(17:25):
course he did make all those videos. So I'm just saying,
I'm pretty sure I influenced Bruce Springsteen in answer to
your question. So in that scenario, I think I was
a kidmaker. That's crazy that Bruce Springsteen at the beginning
was like who needs videos? And like it's so crazy
(17:47):
that like that. I mean, good on her for being
quick on her feet to be like, yeah, what about you?
Though she was the boss a particular moment that defined
(18:10):
being a VJ. Well, I would have to say perhaps
that defining moment for everyone at MTV Welcome to the
World Wide Live Aid Concert, because that's when it all
came together. We believed that we could change the world,
and I believe that live age showed that Bob's vision
(18:34):
of music and television joining together absolutely changed the world.
Come to a massive, totally unprecedented coming together of all
the people's of all worlds in support of our neighbors
in Africa. So for the next sixteen hours, we'll all
be enjoying what can only be characterized as the hottest
(18:54):
acts in music today, and they are Crosby Stills and Nash,
Tom Petty and you know it's interesting on Live Aid too.
It was that moment in which we mattered. Bob Geldoff
had done something called band aid and got an artist
together to raise money, you know, to to fight hunger
in Africa, and he came I named Chip Racklan, who
(19:17):
ran acquisitions for US, brought Bob Geldoff into my office
and said, look, Bob is going to do this big thing,
bigger than band Aid, a real big concert, and he's
going to wants to us to buy the rights or
either HBO and you, and he'll use that money he
gets from that license feed to help the cause. Well,
(19:39):
I'd love to think I'm completely altruistic, which there was
some of it there, But also we didn't have the
money to bid against HBO for a concert. So I said,
you know, I sort of combined the two need and
what I thought was best and said, you know, I
have an idea. Instead of doing a concert and selling
the rights, which is typically what had happened in the past,
(20:00):
why don't we do it. We'll produce it with you
and we'll make the feed available to any television outlet
that wants to carry it, and the only thing we'll
ask is that will ask for donations throughout the show,
which you know I had ever done. And and as
it worked out is that's what happened. And we did
(20:21):
it in Philly and London. We sent half our people
to the UK and half of our people were in
in Philly and we did donations and ABC came in
and offered some money, but they couldn't do donations on
the air, so they wanted a couple of hours of exclusive,
which we said okay and uh, and we carried the
rest of it, like you know, around the clock, and
(20:44):
I think Martha, we raised something like sixty million dollars,
which at that time was stunning. No one had ever
done anything like that with people calling in. And this
wasn't the days when you could text it, not the
days when you could email. You actually had to get
on the phone and call somebody and make a pledge.
Very complicated process. And so it turned out they raised
(21:04):
a lot more money they would ever made by licensing it.
And for us, we managed to be in the center
of live AI driving it as opposed to somebody on
the periphery carrying a concert done by somebody else. But
that was so important MTV. We need to be in it,
not presenting it, not carrying it. For those who don't
(21:24):
know what Live AID is, it's it was basically a
benefit concert that broadcast around the world. Over fifty nations
all watched this live. So we're talking yeah, of the
world's population tuned into this thing, one point nine billion people. Yeah,
(21:46):
but yeah, it was a it was the first time
we saw something of this magnitude. We we did see
benefit concerts before, but this was truly worldwide. And of
course afterwards this became more common and to see these
big benefit concerts. But but MTV actually co produced Live
Aid and had a huge influence on how this uh
(22:09):
got out there. And so yeah, that's why it's a
it's a big moment for them. We're actually we actually
have a special guest here with us, our beloved producer Jason.
Thanks for joining us today. Thank you for letting me
come and crash the party. I think the biggest impact
(22:30):
that MTV had was just on how we saw each other.
They started to expand and you've got shows like Yo
MTV Raps, which it's not uh too much to say
that that is probably the main reason that RAPP got
to the mainstream success and ultimate domination that it did.
(22:52):
You know, hip hop and R and B and all
of that, and then you had that right next to
the headbangers ball, you know, a bunch of metal bands
that would have just aid in the basement otherwise, and
a twenty minutes all of these other types of so
the college rock really what people called it at the time,
but things like goth and punk, and basically the reason
that I started a goth punk industrial magazine is because
(23:13):
in the mid eighties as a kid, I got to
see these bands for the first time sitting there in Iowa,
and suddenly all these different groups of people are seeing
each other and able to relate to each other and
get why they like what they like, and you start
actually getting some idea of a youth culture that really
um is unified across the country. And I think that's
(23:36):
probably one of the biggest impacts MTV has had. Wow,
that's mind boggling. That's good. But ultimately this whole period
does end. You know, MTV, for all of the influence
that it had, it had about a ten year Golden era, right,
and then the reality shows started coming on, but they
(23:56):
started showing more of these, and the truth is that's
where they started making their money. There just was not
as much money in advertising for nothing but music videos.
And so eventually, as cable started proliferating and there were
more and more things to watch and it was harder
to get the eyeballs and you had to get the
money in, they started putting on more original programming until
(24:18):
you got to the time of the nineties and things
like that. So eventually the VJ wasn't necessarily needed. I
mean I have I don't think I've said the word
VJ ever in my life until this episode. I don't
think I've thought of the word VJ. It's not even
(24:39):
a word, right, Like, I don't think I've even said
or thought about the title VJ until doing this episode.
I can't think of anyone who would be like a
modern era VJ. Can you met? Well, I would say
the spirit of the VJ certainly lives on. I mean,
we don't call them VJs. But and when I say
(25:00):
a spirit, I'm also talking about like any influencer on
the Internet who has this strong connection to a community,
like Bob said earlier, they could be in this the
empty seat next to you. I mean, that's stronger now
than ever, I would say, especially because we have because
of how fragmented society is now, like all of these
(25:23):
different communities everywhere. Yeah, so in that sense, I would
say they have a VJ spirit. But yeah, I don't
think I don't think what Martha Quinn is talking about
as VJ. I don't think that job exists anymore. I
wasn't there when they stopped playing music on TV, so
I I can't say other than what my friends who
were there say, which is that the world began to
(25:44):
change that videos you not have prerecorded videos, you were
beginning to have video and demand, you had other outlets
on TV, had hundreds of channels of TV. That the
uniqueness of the video had declined. So that was one
I thought about. I was the other was that one
of the reasons why they went to more programs and
(26:05):
less sort of we're just hanging out playing videos is
because the advertiser would pay more money to be in
a show than they would pay for just whenever the
spot ran with some videos. And uh so, one philosophy
is that they did it because the world was changing,
they need to change with it. The other view was
(26:28):
that they did it because they can make more money
doing it. I have no idea which one it was,
and I have no idea what combination it was, but
certainly it's somewhere in there is probably what led to it.
But I think for all of us who were there
in the beginning of the original MTV, it's sad to
look at MTV and not see what we originally started with.
(26:50):
But I maintain when anybody on planet Earth looks at
that logo, what they are thinking of is the original
format of MTV. And Bob you were saying that they
changed for a variety of reasons, basically coming down to,
you know, the consumer spoke. They wanted something different, advertisers
(27:13):
wanted something different. And I would like to propose to
MTV that I'm hearing so much the people are so
hungry for the old days of MTV. You know, on
my radio station in San Francisco, we're all eighties music
all the time. So obviously my listeners or are biased.
But what I think MTV should do is throw up
(27:36):
their hands and say, Okay, we hear you. You want
your MTV back. That's what we're gonna do, and they
should get Sting and Cyndi Lauper and Pete Townsend to
get to do a whole new campaign. I want my
MTV back, and I think it would crush. Hey, this
(28:04):
is Jason, one of the creators of job Slete who
was your favorite mt V 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 Martha Quinn Morning Show
on I Heart eighties at one oh three seven in
(28:25):
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 hosted by Helen Hong
(28:47):
and Matt beat. The show was conceived and produced by
Jason Elliott. Hey, that's me as Steve's Marky and Anthony Savini.
Our editor is Tommy Nichol. Our researcher is Amelia Polka.
Additional sound engineering by John Norton. Our production coordinator is
Angie Hymis. Theme music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder.
(29:10):
Extra special thanks this week to mong Gesh 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 Sleet, could you do
(29:30):
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 se
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