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Built for Success
The Story of MTV
A look at the origins, leaders, growth, and innovations of MTV, the music video channel founded in 1981, which is one of cable television's leading entertainment channels today.
48 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 6, 2021
3.5
Very abbreviated, but got the job done. I appreciate the scheduling breakdowns by decade.
Very abbreviated, but got the job done. I appreciate the scheduling breakdowns by decade.
June 12, 2021
3.5
I read this because I Want My MTV is too daunting for me but I actually think it was a decent book even if it was aimed for teenagers. They covered a lot of MTV's history in under 60 pages and talked about their struggles as a business and many iterations. They didn't shy away from discussing MTV and racism, which I appreciated. I was very surprised to know that the first cries that the channel was moving away from music were starting in the 80's and there were some weirder, left field shows on like You Wrote It, You Watch It or a talk show hosted by Andy Warhol. They covered the shift to original and reality programming pretty well and described each wave of change in the 2000's. It honestly seems shocking and quaint that as recently as 2009, you could get up to 6 hours of videos a day on the channel.
I would wonder what they would have to say about the newest version of the channel that thrives on reboots of the late 2000's reality shows and a 300 episode a week airing of Ridiculousness that gets mocked by Twitter once a month. I also feel like that any of these books should just cover VH1 and their original programming as well, because it shows that any channel that revolves around music videos will commit the sin of evolving at one point or another.
I read this because I Want My MTV is too daunting for me but I actually think it was a decent book even if it was aimed for teenagers. They covered a lot of MTV's history in under 60 pages and talked about their struggles as a business and many iterations. They didn't shy away from discussing MTV and racism, which I appreciated. I was very surprised to know that the first cries that the channel was moving away from music were starting in the 80's and there were some weirder, left field shows on like You Wrote It, You Watch It or a talk show hosted by Andy Warhol. They covered the shift to original and reality programming pretty well and described each wave of change in the 2000's. It honestly seems shocking and quaint that as recently as 2009, you could get up to 6 hours of videos a day on the channel.
I would wonder what they would have to say about the newest version of the channel that thrives on reboots of the late 2000's reality shows and a 300 episode a week airing of Ridiculousness that gets mocked by Twitter once a month. I also feel like that any of these books should just cover VH1 and their original programming as well, because it shows that any channel that revolves around music videos will commit the sin of evolving at one point or another.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews