On This Day in 1981 – MTV is Born!
On August 1st 1981 MTV was launched in an estimated 2 million homes at 12:01 A.M. It started off with the words, "Ladies and gentleman, rock and roll."
Here's that original broadcast:
The first video shown was "Video Killed The Radio Star":
That's right, kids! MTV stand for 'Music Television'! As in...the used to play music. It was AWESOME!
Wanna know why MTV stopped playing videos? Watch this video for a pretty accurate explanation. (WARNING: It's LOADED with profanity, but still makes a good point.)