On This Day, August 1

1. 1981: MTV makes its debut

Photo: playbuzz

Photo: playbuzz

Photo: huffpost

Photo: huffpost

It was on this date in 1981 the music video for the song “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles plays on debut of the now famous network known as MTV. What was originally intended for the New Jersey area has now become one of the biggest networks on TV. The words “Ladies and Gentleman this is Rock and Roll” were said by one of the networks creators John Lack before rolling into the music videos. Although we don’t see a whole lot of music videos on MTV nowadays, that was their main priority back then. It was reported that over 80 different videos were played during the first week. It wasn’t long before they started to incorporate actual showed directed towards a smaller audience. Some people feel as if MTV paved the way for reality based programming with their show The Real World, plus they were the station that brought us Beavis and Butthead!