history MTV

The first images shown on MTV were a montage of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
MTV pre-history began in 1977, when Warner Cable (a division of Warner Communications and an ancestor of WASEC, Warner Satellite Entertainment Company) launched the first two-way interactive cable TV system, Qube, in Columbus, Ohio. The Qube system offered many specialized channels, including a children's channel called Pinwheel which would later become Nickelodeon. One of these specialized channels was Sight On Sound, a music channel that featured concert footage and music oriented TV programs; with the interactive Qube service, viewers could vote for their favorite songs and artists.

1981-1984

August 1, 1981
On August 1, 1981, MTV: Music Television launched with a programming format created by the visionary media executive, Bob Pittman (who later became president and chief executive officer, of MTV Networks [1], and, in the 1990s COO of AOL, America Online).
(Pittman had test driven the music format by producing and hosting a 15 minute show, Album Tracks, on WNBC, New York, in the late 1970s. And Pittman's boss, WASEC COO John Lack, had sheparded a TV series called PopClips, created by former Monkee-turned solo artist Michael Nesmith, the latter of whom by the late 1970s was turning his attention to the music video format. [2]
The channel went to air at 12:01 a.m. with the words (by original COO John Lack) "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll!" and the original MTV theme song, a crunching guitar riff written by Jonathan Elias and John Petersen, playing over a montage of the Apollo 11 moon landing (MTV producers used this footage because it was in the public domain.) The official subscriber count across America was 3,000,000 (the actual number was 500,000), but the immediate impact would have argued that every young adult's home in the country was watching. Sporadically, the screen would go black when someone at MTV inserted a tape into a VCR. [3] Appropriately, the first music video shown on MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. The second video shown was Pat Benatar's "You Better Run". With similar tongue-in-cheek humor, the first video shown on MTV Europe was "Money for Nothing," by Dire Straits, which starts and finishes with repetition of the line "I want my MTV", voiced by Sting. On MTV Latina, the first video shown was "We Are South American Rockers" by the Chilean band Los Prisioneros and on MTV Brasil it was Garota de Ipanema, sang by Marina Lima.

Early format
The early format of the network was modeled after Top 40 radio. Fresh-faced young men and women were hired to host the show's programming, and to introduce videos that were being played. The term VJ (video jockey) was coined, a play on the acronym DJ (disc jockey.) Many VJs eventually became celebrities in their own right. The original five MTV VJs in 1981 were Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn. In 2005, this group (except for J.J. Jackson, who had died in 2004) was reunited as hosts on Sirius Satellite Radio. [4]

Early videos
The early music videos that made up the bulk of the network's programming in the 1980s were often crude promotional or concert clips from whatever sources could be found; as the popularity of the network rose, and record companies recognized the potential of the medium as a tool to gain recognition and publicity, they began to create increasingly elaborate clips specifically for the network. Several noted film directors got their start creating music videos, including Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and David Fincher.

Notable rock bands and performers
A large number of rock bands and performers of the 1980s and 1990s were made into household names by MTV. 1980s acts immediately identifiable with MTV include Van Halen, The Police, The Cars, Eurythmics, RATT, Culture Club, Def Leppard, Duran Duran, Bon Jovi, and "Weird Al" Yankovic, who made a career out of parodying other artists videos. Many of the more successful musicians featured on MTV could frequently be seen doing station identification spots for the network, exclaiming the signature line, "I want my MTV!!" The heavy rock band KISS publicly appeared without their trademark makeup for the first time on MTV in 1983. Michael Jackson launched the second wave of his career as an MTV staple. Madonna rose to fame on MTV in the 1980s. Madonna is the most successful video performer in MTV history, and to this day she uses MTV to market her music.

1984-1987
In 1984 the network produced its first MTV Video Music Awards show. Seen as a fit of self-indulgence by a fledgling network at the time, the "VMAs" developed into a music-industry showcase marketed as a hip antidote to the Grammy awards. In 1992, the network would add a movie award show with similar success.
After MTV's programming shifted towards heavy metal and rap music, MTV Networks launched a second network, Video Hits 1 (VH-1), in 1985. VH1 featured more popular music than MTV. Today, MTV Networks also owns Nickelodeon, a cable channel airing children's and family programming.

MTV in the mid-'90s, shortly before the transition to non-music programming. This frame is taken from a Take That music video.

1987-1999
Before 1987, MTV featured almost exclusively music videos, but as time passed they introduced a variety of other shows. Many of these shows were originally intended for other channels. The new genres include animated cartoons such as Beavis and Butt-head and Daria; reality shows such as The Real World and Road Rules; prank/comedic shows such as The Tom Green Show, Jackass, and Punk'd; and soap operas such as Undressed
Non-music video programming began in the late 1980s with the introduction of The Week in Rock, Club MTV and Remote Control.
By the second half of the 1990s, MTV programming consisted primarily of non-music programming.

2000-2004
In 2000, MTV's Fear became the first 'scary' reality show where contestants filmed themselves. The show ran for three seasons and spawned numerous imitations, including Fear Factor on NBC. In 2002, MTV aired the first episode of another reality show, The Osbournes, based on the everyday life of former, Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, his wife Sharon, and two of their children, Jack and Kelly. The show went on to become one of the network's biggest ever success stories and kick-started a musical career for Kelly Osbourne, while Sharon Osbourne went on to host a talk show on U.S. television. In 2003, Newlyweds, another popular reality TV show that follows the lives of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, a music celebrity couple, began airing. It ran for four seasons and ended in early 2005 and they later divorced. The success of Newlyweds was followed in June 2004 by The Ashlee Simpson Show, which documented the beginnings of the music career of Ashlee Simpson, Jessica Simpson's younger sister. In the fall of 2004, Ozzy Osbourne's reality show Battle for Ozzfest aired.

2004-2006 (Viacom)
In 2004, MTV's parent company Viacom bought Germany's largest provider for music television Viva Media AG, thereby creating the largest company for music on the European mainland. In November 2004, MTV announced it would begin airing MTV Base in Africa from February 2005, [5] thereby reaching the world's last major populated area previously not served by MTV.
In 2006, MTV plans to launch MTV Ukraine, to pursue the emerging music market. There are already launched services in the Baltic states with MTV Estonia, MTV Latvia and MTV Lithuania. MTV Türkiye, the Turkish service, was launched October 23, 2006, which was also the time the festival of Eid was celebrated. The founder of MTV Türkiye deliberately launched it on Eid because she wanted it to be an Eid present for Turkey's youth.
In June 2006, MTV announced the creation of MTV K, the first music and pop-culture destination for young Korean-Americans. The channel will import the hottest and latest superstars from Korea, artists like BoA, Rain, and Se7en and will introduce new and emerging Korean-American artists making noise of their own. This will provide a chance for Korean and Korean-American artists alike to gain U.S. exposure.