How MTV Maintains Its Dominance

How MTV Maintains Its Dominance

Music Television, a basic cable service known by its acronym MTV, remains the dominant music video outlet utilizing effective marketing and competitive business practices throughout its nineteen year history. The creation of the "I Want My MTV" marketing campaign and use of the campaign throughout the 1980's helped the cable outlet secure a substantial subscriber base. MTV dealt with competition from cable mogul Ted Turner's Cable Music Channel by creating a fighting brand, sister cable service VH-1, along with facing challenges by numerous other music video programming services. Through exclusivity agreements with record labels for music videos and limiting access to cable systems owned by MTV's parent company, MTV exercised anticompetitive and monopolistic means to fend off competition. From its launch, MTV successfully applied these marketing and competitive business practices. The board of the Warner - AMEX Satellite Entertainment Company (WASEC), a partnership between Warner Communications and American Express, gave approval in mid-January 1981 for the creation of a cable service that would broadcast music videos . Music videos, song length visual depictions used in the promotion of a musical act's latest release, were already popular on European television since the mid 1970s. A deadline of August 1, 1981 was set for the launch of this new cable service as programs featuring music videos were beginning to appear on cable outlets such as Home Box Office and USA Network. The set-up and programming of the entire operation was to be established in approximately six-and-a-half months.

Bob Pittman, a WASEC programming executive with a background in radio, wanted to ensure the new music video outlet delivered programming that appealed to its target audience of twelve to thirty-four-year-olds. This age demographic was both desirable and difficult for advertisers to reach as young adults typically did not watch much of what television offered at the time. He determined that, with little exception, the cable service would have no distinguishable programs. Video upon video would be presented by on-air personalities dubbed video jockeys, veejays for short, who would also provide entertainment news and conduct artist interviews. The absence of scheduled programming was, as stated by Tom McGrath in MTV: The Maki...

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..., Tom. MTV: The Making of a Revolution. (Pennsylvania: Running, 1996), p. 47.

Ibid., p. 53.

Ibid., p. 47.

Ibid., p. 48.

Ibid., p. 48.

Ibid., p. 50.

Banks, Jack. Monopoly Television: MTV's Quest to Control the Music. (Colorado: Westview, 1996), p. 34.

McGrath, Tom. MTV: The Making of a Revolution. (Pennsylvania: Running, 1996), p. 62-63.

Ibid., p. 80.

Ibid., p. 80.

Ibid., p. 81.

Ibid., p. 81.

Ibid., p88.

Ibid., p. 88-89.

Ibid., p. 89.

Ibid., p. 124.

Ibid., p. 124.

Ibid., p. 125.

Ibid., p. 125, 129.

Ibid., p. 129.

"Ted Turner Turns off the Music." The Economist. 8 December 1984: 77.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Denisoff, R. Serge. Inside MTV. (New Jersey: Transaction, 1988), p. 155.

Ibid., p. 155.

Ibid., p. 155.

Ibid., p. 156.

Bibliography:

Banks, Jack. Monopoly Television: MTV's Quest to Control the Music. Colorado: Westview, 1996.

Denisoff, R. Serge. Inside MTV. New Jersey: Transaction, 1988.

McGrath, Tom. MTV: The Making of a Revolution. Pennsylvania: Running, 1996.

"Ted Turner Turns off the Music." The Economist. 8 December 1984: 77.