Pour one out for the VJs and tell the MTV moonman to fly his flag at half-mast. The world’s first 24-hour music broadcaster has announced plans to stop showing rolling music videos on its five specialist channels in the UK on December 31.
Launched in the US in 1981, MTV quickly became a cultural phenomenon, exclusively premiering music videos including Michael Jackson’s Thriller in 1983, putting out the era-defining series MTV Unplugged from 1989, and birthing modern reality television in 1992 with The Real World. Its various award shows provided some of the most talked-about moments in pop culture, from Madonna kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in 2003, to Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift on the podium in 2009, to Lady Gaga’s meat dress in 2010. But music videos were the brand’s central pillar and MTV had the reach to propel artists such as Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper and Nirvana to superstardom.
Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards
CHRISTOPHER POLK/GETTY IMAGES
But video killed the radio star and now the internet has come for the music channel. The days of staying up, crowded round a television set to see a video premiere are long gone. Today, everyone watches the new Sabrina Carpenter video on YouTube or Instagram. Nor are music videos as integral to an artist’s success as they once were. The most talked-about album of the year, Lily Allen’s West End Girl, was released without an official video. Instead she chose a series of “visualisers”, low-budget 30-second looped clips to accompany the tracks on YouTube that fans could share on their socials.
MTV Europe was set up in 1987, and MTV UK arrived a decade later. The first video played was the football anthem Three Lions. Now, at the end of the year, MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live will all be switched off in the UK. The flagship channel, MTV HD, will remain, but broadcasting only reality series such as Geordie Shore, Naked Dating UK and Ex on the Beach. The day the music died indeed. Channel bosses might as well change the “M” in MTV to Mindless.
Ian Broudie, Frank Skinner and David Baddiel promote their song Three Lions
PA
I was lucky enough to work at MTV from 2006 to 2008. Sure, I missed out on the glory days of the Nineties, which many have pointed out was the media’s real last hurrah, but the last gasps of excess could be found in the late Noughties at the channel’s fluorescent Camden office, where expense accounts were still healthy, drug use was rife and rock stars roamed the halls.
It was my first “proper” job after university. An English lit graduate with no more ambition than to have “any sort of job in media”, I applied for a role as a partnerships assistant, a title that meant absolutely nothing to me. But it was MTV! Moving from a small town in Berkshire to begin my life in London, I considered MTV a dream first gig for a music-mad 23-year-old, even if my starting salary was £17,000.
On arriving, I soon realised that while I might be in the MTV office, I was on the corporate side of things, sitting with a department called Viacom Brand Solutions. My team’s job was to sell sponsorships for all the shows and produce the ten-second bumpers that enthusiastically said things like: “The Hills! Brought to you by Impulse.” Our main clients seemed to be soft drinks and sanitary products. We’d also do exclusive competitions, usually involving winning a camera or a trip to New York to celebrate the release of forgettable films such as Catch and Release, which hardly anyone ever entered.
Britney Spears and Madonna at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards
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The hierarchy of the departments soon became apparent and I started to look on enviously at all the young creatives who wandered round the office in American Apparel clothes. The coolest place to work was in production, followed by the talent team, creative and marketing departments. Mine came in somewhere slightly above the guys who sat in a cupboard all day duplicating tapes. I was considered a suit and was often reminded of it down the pub. Still, tell anyone that you worked at MTV and their eyes lit up. The brand carried so much cultural cachet back then.
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As for the original programming, the UK budgets were wildly lower than those of our American counterparts and our shoestring versions of the flagships shows were remarkably less slick. Rather than visiting Mariah Carey’s palatial mansion for Cribs, we would be showing off the boys from Blue’s modest suburban homes, where Duncan James had three flatmates and Antony Costa still lived with his parents. While the US version of Pimp My Ride gave blinging, audacious makeovers to an American’s wheels (they installed a baby grand piano and a mini casino in the back of one van), the UK team would more likely be making John from Essex’s car roadworthy again, and possibly adding a little fridge. Even Dirty Sanchez, the UK’s lewd response to MTV’s hit Jackass, lacked the panache of the original (and anyone as dreamy as Johnny Knoxville to swoon over).
Refusing to get stuck with the suits, I made friends from other departments, including a young intern called Nick Grimshaw. We soon became flatmates, but he left MTV months later for Channel 4 after it was discovered that his talents lay in hosting rather than ordering pens for the department he worked in.
Gillian Orr (second from right) with Georgia May Jagger, Nick Grimshaw and Josh McLellan
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I also got in with the team who produced the daily MTV News show, hosted by Tim Kash. They were invited to just about every single event in London so we would get together in the afternoon and decide which parties we would hit up that evening. The important factors to consider included: who had good drink sponsors, would there be food (sometimes we called ahead to inquire), and who was likely to have a decent goodie bag. Such was the pulling power of the MTV brand, we were never denied entry to any party, even if it was unlikely that a new Burberry fragrance launch was going to be covered by MTV News.
And when we weren’t partying at events for mobile phone companies, vodka brands and All Saints, we would be at the infamous Hawley Arms pub, just round the corner from MTV’s office, where we would drink with such people as Amy Winehouse, Pete Doherty and, er, Razorlight.
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At times it felt like the whole office was hungover, every day. The breakfast of choice from the canteen was sausage bagels, to soak up the previous night’s excess, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to take a nap in the loo. I once arrived at work late after the Brit awards, having not been to bed, still wearing my going-out frock and missing my fake tooth (I had miscalculated a backwards roly-poly at an after-party and hit my head on a wall, causing the tooth to pop out. The rapper Coolio helped me find it on the floor). My team laughed and sent me straight to the dentist.
Musicians were, naturally, in and out of the office all day. It was the height of what is now known as “indie sleaze” and we would get very excited when bands such as Klaxons, MGMT and Interpol walked by our desks on their way to the studio to record Gonzo, the Zane Lowe-fronted show on MTV2.
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My highlight came when a new Motorola flip phone was the sponsor for a series of concerts that were held in the on-site studio. Fans could apply for tickets to watch bands play in a 100-capacity venue, to be filmed live and broadcast on MTV. While they were setting up for the Strokes, someone came over to say that they needed a volunteer to stand a metre in front of the band while they tested camera levels. And that’s how I was treated to a personal concert from the Strokes, playing three of their hits just for me while I stood there trying to look bored. It was probably the coolest thing I did during my time there. Thank you, Motorola.
The DJ Tim Westwood presented the UK version of Pimp My Ride on MTV
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More recently there have been allegations of inappropriate behaviour and sexual misconduct. Two MTV presenters, Tim Westwood and Russell Brand, have since been charged with rape. Westwood hosted the UK version of Pimp My Ride and I remember him enthusiastically getting stuck in at the annual Christmas party. Brand had been fired as a presenter by MTV after turning up to work the day after 9/11 dressed as Osama bin Laden. He was brought back in 2006 to host 1 Leicester Square and walked through the office, waving to workers. Brand and Westwood have denied the allegations against them.
The party came to an end when I decided I might have bigger ambitions than making five-second ads for Wrigley’s gum and that I might try to be a journalist. Still, I don’t think I could have had a better first job than at MTV. I bet YouTube doesn’t have that much fun.