Editing MTV (section)

=== Breaking the "color barrier" ===
During MTV's first few years, very few black artists were featured. The select few in MTV's rotation between 1981 and 1984 were [[Michael Jackson]], [[Prince (musician)|Prince]], [[Eddy Grant]], [[Tina Turner]], [[Donna Summer]], [[Joan Armatrading]], [[Musical Youth]], [[The Specials]], [[The Selecter]], [[Grace Jones]], [[Jon Butcher|John Butcher]] and [[Herbie Hancock]]. [[Mikey Craig]] of [[Culture Club]], [[Joe Leeway]] of [[Thompson Twins]] and [[Tracy Wormworth]] of [[The Waitresses]] were also black. The Specials, which included black and white vocalists and musicians, were also the first act with people of color to perform on MTV; their song "Rat Race" was the 58th video on the station's first broadcast day.<ref>Hoye, Jacob. MTV Uncensored. Pocket Books, 2001. {{ISBN|0-7434-2682-7}}.</ref>

MTV refused other black artists' videos, such as [[Rick James]]' "[[Super Freak]]", because they did not fit the channel's carefully selected [[Album-oriented rock|album-oriented rock format]] at the time. The exclusion enraged James, who publicly advocated the addition of more black artists to the channel. [[David Bowie]] also questioned MTV's lack of black artists during an on-air interview with VJ [[Mark Goodman]] in 1983.<ref name="FINDART1">{{Cite news|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_14_110/ai_n16807343/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130802013636/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_14_110/ai_n16807343/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1 |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 2, 2013 |title=Why it took MTV so long to play black music videos |work=Jet |year=2006 }}</ref> MTV's original head of talent and acquisition, Carolyn B. Baker, who was black, questioned why the definition of music had to be so narrow, as did a few others outside the network. Years later, Baker said, "The party line at MTV was that we weren't playing black music because of the research&nbsp;– but the research was based on ignorance… We were young, we were cutting-edge. We didn't have to be on the cutting edge of racism." Nevertheless, it was Baker who rejected Rick James' "Super Freak" video "because there were half-naked women in it, and it was a piece of crap. As a black woman, I did not want that representing my people as the first black video on MTV."<ref>Marks, Craig & Tannebaum, Rob, I Want My MTV, Penguin Books, 2011, pp. 167–168</ref>

The network's director of music programming, Buzz Brindle, told an interviewer in 2006: "MTV was originally designed to be a rock music channel. It was difficult for MTV to find African American artists whose music fit the channel's format that leaned toward rock at the outset." Writers Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum noted that the channel "aired videos by plenty of white artists who didn't play rock." Andrew Goodwin later wrote: "[MTV] denied racism, on the grounds that it merely followed the rules of the rock business."<ref>Marks, Craig & Tannebaum, Rob, I Want My MTV, Penguin Books, 2011, pg. 166</ref> MTV senior executive vice president [[Les Garland]] complained decades later, "The worst thing was that 'racism' bullshit{{nbsp}}... there were hardly any videos being made by black artists. Record companies weren't funding them. ''They'' never got charged with racism." However, critics of that defence pointed out that record companies were not funding videos for black artists because they knew they would have difficulty persuading MTV to play them.<ref>{{cite news |last=Izadi |first=Elahe |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/11/how-david-bowie-confronted-mtv-for-ignoring-black-artists-in-the-early-1980s/ |title=This is how David Bowie confronted MTV when it was still ignoring black artists |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=December 8, 2016 |archive-date=October 11, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211011103843/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/01/11/how-david-bowie-confronted-mtv-for-ignoring-black-artists-in-the-early-1980s/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In celebrating the 40th anniversary of the network's launch in 2021, current MTV Entertainment Group president Chris McCarthy acknowledged that "(o)ne of the bigger mistakes in the early years was not playing enough diverse music{{nbsp}}... but the nice thing that I've always learned at MTV is we have no problem owning our mistakes, quickly correcting them and trying to do the right thing and always follow where the audience is going."<ref name=40th>{{cite news |url=https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-business-music-7368f80439c56516c942eec1867715a0 |title=MTV marks 40th anniversary with a new 'Moon Person' design |publisher=Associated Press |access-date=August 2, 2021 |archive-date=September 12, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210912101308/https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-business-music-7368f80439c56516c942eec1867715a0 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Before 1983, Michael Jackson also struggled for MTV airtime.<ref name=blender>{{cite web|url=http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?ID=1777 |title=Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean |access-date=April 11, 2007 |work=blender.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070312182503/http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?ID=1777 |archive-date=March 12, 2007 }}</ref> To resolve the struggle and finally "break the color barrier", the president of [[Columbia Records|CBS Records]], [[Walter Yetnikoff]], denounced MTV in a strong, profane statement, threatening to take away its right to play any of the label's music.<ref name=blender/><ref>The quote from [[Walter Yetnikoff]] reads, "I'm pulling everything we have off the air ... I'm not going to give you any more videos. And I'm going to go public and fucking tell them about the fact you don't want to play music by a black guy."</ref> However, Les Garland, then acquisitions head, said he decided to air Jackson's "[[Billie Jean]]" video without pressure from CBS,<ref name="FINDART1" /> a statement later contradicted by CBS head of Business Affairs David Benjamin in [[Vanity Fair (magazine)|''Vanity Fair'']].<ref name=VanityFair>{{cite web|url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2000/11/mtv200011|author=Robert Sam Anson|title=Birth of an MTV Nation|website=[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]|date=June 4, 2008|access-date=February 16, 2022|archive-date=December 27, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227190233/http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2000/11/mtv200011|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Michael Jackson 1984.jpg|upright=0.8|thumb|right|[[Michael Jackson]], whose discography included music videos such as "[[Beat It]]", "[[Billie Jean]]", and "[[Michael Jackson's Thriller (music video)|Thriller]]"]]

According to ''[[The Austin Chronicle]]'', Jackson's video for the song "Billie Jean" was "the video that broke the color barrier, even though the channel itself was responsible for erecting that barrier in the first place."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Beets|first=Greg|title=Blow Up Your Video|url=http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A82541|work=[[The Austin Chronicle]]|date=August 3, 2001|access-date=January 30, 2008|archive-date=February 10, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210210221009/https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2001-08-03/82541/|url-status=live}}</ref> But change was not immediate. "Billie Jean" was not added to MTV's "medium rotation" playlist (two to three airings per day) until it reached No. 1 on the [[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]] chart. In the final week of March, it was in "heavy rotation", one week before the MTV debut of Jackson's "[[Beat It]]" video. Prince's "[[Little Red Corvette]]" joined both videos in heavy rotation at the end of April. At the beginning of June, "[[Electric Avenue (song)|Electric Avenue]]" by Eddy Grant joined "Billie Jean", which was still in heavy rotation until mid-June. At the end of August, "[[She Works Hard for the Money]]" by Donna Summer was in heavy rotation on the channel. Herbie Hancock's "[[Rockit (song)|Rockit]]" and [[Lionel Richie]]'s "[[All Night Long (All Night)|All Night Long]]" were placed in heavy rotation at the end of October and the beginning of November respectively. In the final week of November, Donna Summer's "[[Unconditional Love (Donna Summer song)|Unconditional Love]]" was in heavy rotation. When Jackson's [[Michael Jackson's Thriller (music video)|elaborate video]] for "[[Thriller (song)|Thriller]]" was released late that year, raising the bar for what a video could be, the network's support for it was total; subsequently, more pop and R&B videos were played on MTV.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-08-25-mtv_x.htm|title=Jackson ends black music prejudice on MTV|work=USA Today|first1=Edna|last1=Gundersen|date=August 25, 2005|access-date=May 13, 2010|archive-date=October 30, 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051030101653/http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-08-25-mtv_x.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

Following Jackson's and Prince's breakthroughs on MTV, Rick James did several interviews where he brushed off the accomplishment as [[tokenism]], saying in a 1983 interview, in an episode of ''[[Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus]]'' on James, that "any black artist that [had] their video played on MTV should pull their [videos] off MTV."<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/3NhmAGKir40 Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the {{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NhmAGKir40 |title=Rick James & Prince Part 2 tour bus tales |website=[[YouTube]] |date=November 17, 2018 |access-date=June 1, 2020 |archive-date=February 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200229053711/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NhmAGKir40 |url-status=bot: unknown }}: {{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NhmAGKir40 |title=Rick James & Prince Part 2 tour bus tales |website=[[YouTube]] |date=November 17, 2018 |access-date=June 1, 2020}}{{cbignore}}</ref>