Before it was a reality TV network, MTV was, quite literally, twenty-four hours of music videos and VJs — a genuinely radical idea for television in 1981, and one it eventually walked away from entirely.
Read more →MTV wanted a cheap replacement for scripted drama and put seven strangers in a loft instead. Nobody involved realized they were inventing an entire genre of television.
Read more →Total Request Live turned a countdown show into a daily ritual, a launchpad for pop's biggest stars, and the last great collective music moment before the internet fragmented everything.
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