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Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: You actually were the guy who inspired us to do

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Speaker 1: animated logos. Do you remember this? I said, well, what

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Speaker 1: are we going to do in between the videos and

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Speaker 1: the VJs that are we gonna do jingles? And he went, oh, no,

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Speaker 1: we can't do jingles? And I said, what do we do?

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Speaker 1: He said, how about this? Imagine It's a picture of

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Speaker 1: a cow. I said, yeah, he said, and all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, an X comes down and cuts the cow's

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Speaker 1: head off and it falls to the ground and you

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Speaker 1: see the veins coming out and the blood spurting out,

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Speaker 1: and the cow vomits, and in the vomit is the logo.

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Speaker 1: I went, Oh, my god, I can do anything I want. Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Bob Tipman, and welcome to Math and Magic. Stories

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Speaker 1: from the Frontiers and Marketing, and we're doing something special

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Speaker 1: on today's episode. One of the pivotal moments of my

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Speaker 1: life was leading the team that created MTV. I've had

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Speaker 1: the good chate of having all the co founders of

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Speaker 1: MTV on this podcast with me and in each of

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Speaker 1: the interviews, whether it was chatting with Judie Grath or

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Speaker 1: Fred Seibert, John Sykes or Yarramon and of course Tom Freston.

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Speaker 1: We've always spent a little time talking about MTV, so

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Speaker 1: what we wanted to do for you today was pulled

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Speaker 1: together those stories for the first time ever. Tell the

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Speaker 1: story of the beginning of MTV through the eyes of

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Speaker 1: people who were actually in the room when it happened,

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Speaker 1: because all of us who are really in the room

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Speaker 1: often laugh about how far off other people's accounts can be.

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Speaker 1: So let me set the stage. It's the beginning of

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Speaker 1: the eighties. Cable TV was still a crazy idea. Most

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Speaker 1: business executives and most of America didn't understand it or

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Speaker 1: believe in how TV was about to change. And here

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Speaker 1: comes this pack of twenty year olds with an attitude.

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Speaker 1: None of us had ever done the jobs before. All

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Speaker 1: we knew is we had grown up with rock and

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Speaker 1: roll and we've grown up with TV, and the two

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Speaker 1: had never successfully come together. We thought it had always

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Speaker 1: failed because TV people always wanted to try and make

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Speaker 1: music at the TV form. A story of we intended

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Speaker 1: to make TV at the music form mood and emotion.

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Speaker 1: MTV was going to be about attitude and something people

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Speaker 1: wanted to join. We run a mission. So when Iheart's

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Speaker 1: own John Sykes at the time, a twenty four year

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Speaker 1: old record executive at CBS Records in Chicago, heard what

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Speaker 1: we were up to. Well, he wanted in, So let's

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Speaker 1: talk about MTV. It's nineteen eighty the word gets out

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Speaker 1: that we're working on this d music channel. How do

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Speaker 1: you hear about it? What does it mean to you?

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Speaker 1: And how on earth did you really get connected to

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Speaker 1: us to get on that original team. I grew up

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Speaker 1: with three things in my life. Radio, television, music. That's

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Speaker 1: all I cared about. When I wasn't listen to the

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Speaker 1: radio station, I was watching TV or listening to music.

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Speaker 1: Those things, to me shaped our culture. So I'm at

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Speaker 1: schoolb TV's just starting up, and I saw the cable

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Speaker 1: channels were empty and music was all over the radio.

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Speaker 1: Was it on television? So we used to go and

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Speaker 1: shoot the concerts at Argus and we'd pape them and

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Speaker 1: send them to new channels. We played the concerts and

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Speaker 1: people like, oh my god, I can see the band,

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Speaker 1: And all I wanted to do at that point was

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Speaker 1: put music on television. When I graduated, I went to

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Speaker 1: CBS that let's put music on let's run concerts. These

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Speaker 1: three Martini lunch guys in New York looked at me

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Speaker 1: and like it was crazy. I got a job in

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Speaker 1: the record business promoting radio stations. I wanted to run

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Speaker 1: the radio station. I didn't want to promote them on

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Speaker 1: the rail, but that's the job I had. So then

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Speaker 1: I heard from my friend's deep case he was at

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Speaker 1: WLS in Chicago, that his great friend Bob Pittman was

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Speaker 1: in New York and he was going to start a

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Speaker 1: video channel, and I lost my mind. It still gives

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Speaker 1: me goosebumps. I was like, this is what I was

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Speaker 1: made to do, this is what I wanted to do.

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Speaker 1: Them to me, it was like music belonged on television.

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Speaker 1: So I started calling you, and I called you, and

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Speaker 1: I called you and I called you, and thanks to

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Speaker 1: your assistant and Plunkett, who I was annoying so much,

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Speaker 1: he said, all right, Bob, you please talk to this guy.

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Speaker 1: And we met that day with a borrowed support jacket.

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Speaker 1: Because I didn't known it, but you and I connected

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Speaker 1: that moment because we had the same vision. Music and

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Speaker 1: television were the two biggest forces in pop culture and

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Speaker 1: they were about to be you know, you look back

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Speaker 1: on any successful product, and it seems easy. You were

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Speaker 1: there when we didn't even have approval from the board

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Speaker 1: to do it. We just had some money to develop it.

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Speaker 1: So give us a little color for people who think

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Speaker 1: things are easy and they always go exactly the way

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Speaker 1: you plan. What that early development was like. It is

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Speaker 1: funny and people are like, oh my god, you're in

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Speaker 1: the team that started MTV. That must have been a

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Speaker 1: magical and great to go. I don't know. I was

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Speaker 1: working too hard. We were so into trenches all the time.

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Speaker 1: It only looks glamorous that day looking back, but when

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Speaker 1: you're in it, it's a slugfest. There was this idea,

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Speaker 1: but to make it happen, we had no money, and

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Speaker 1: we all quit jobs. You were at NBC, I was

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Speaker 1: at CBS. I was the promotion Man of the Year

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Speaker 1: in Chicago, and I just said, I'm quitting. People like us,

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Speaker 1: we weren't going to fail. I never thought we were

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Speaker 1: going to fail. I got scared when you'd come in

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Speaker 1: and say, you know they're gonna cut the budgets. We've

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Speaker 1: got a few more months. We've got to make our numbers.

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Speaker 1: That just made me say, well, we're gonna have to

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Speaker 1: work hard to make our numbers. I do still remember

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Speaker 1: one conversation we have where I said, Okay, we're going

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Speaker 1: to the board and we're going to pitch this or approval,

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Speaker 1: and you go, what, we don't have approval. I quit

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Speaker 1: my job. We don't have approval. No, no, John, this

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Speaker 1: was development. All the blood ran out of your face

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Speaker 1: at that moment. I do remember I had to look

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Speaker 1: up because there was no Internet, I had to go

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Speaker 1: into Dictionary look up the real definition of development. I

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Speaker 1: just thought, we're developing something. Development means it's not going

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Speaker 1: to happen yet. But you know something. I was like,

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Speaker 1: who cares if it doesn't work, I'll go to sleep

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Speaker 1: on my sister's couching another job. We were young. John

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Speaker 1: Sykes was so hungry he pounded on our door to

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Speaker 1: let him in. He believed in music television from the start.

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Speaker 1: But my good pal Fred Cybert, the one who came

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Speaker 1: out of radio and helped create the graphic of MTV,

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Speaker 1: his reason for getting into TV was very different. One

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Speaker 1: of your great supporters, who I'd worked with and who

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Speaker 1: I loved early, Dale Pond, recommended you to me pre MTV.

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Speaker 1: It was in the early days to pay TV you

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Speaker 1: came over to join us in the cable revolution. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: why did you make that jump? Well, you know this

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Speaker 1: is gonna sound flattering. I did it completely because of you.

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Speaker 1: Dale had left the country music radio station and left

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Speaker 1: me alone, and the guy I was working for at

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Speaker 1: that time in radio I had no respect for whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: So you called me one day, you said you want

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Speaker 1: to be in televised and oh, you said, okay, come

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Speaker 1: have coffee with me. I went to Dale's files and

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Speaker 1: he had files on everyone in the business, and there

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Speaker 1: was one article about you, and I thought to myself,

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Speaker 1: you know, this guy is younger than me, and I've

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Speaker 1: heard of him. So that's one check. So we go,

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Speaker 1: we have the coffee, and I walk out and I

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Speaker 1: called my best friend and I said, this guy that

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Speaker 1: I just talked to is so much smarter than my

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Speaker 1: boss in radio. He goes, well, what do you think

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Speaker 1: about that? I said, Well, here's what Dale taught me.

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Speaker 1: Doesn't matter what the job is, worked for the smartest

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Speaker 1: person you can find, and at the time, you were

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Speaker 1: the smartest person I could find. That's what got me

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Speaker 1: into truth be told. When you first told me about it,

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Speaker 1: I thought it was the dumbest idea in the world.

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Speaker 1: Because I was a music guy and I had seen,

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Speaker 1: you know, a few crummy music videos. I hadn't really

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Speaker 1: thought about it too much, and then luckily somebody played

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Speaker 1: me a music video that made, you know, the little

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Speaker 1: light go off. I don't know whether it was blind

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Speaker 1: faith or I was too naive to know that you

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Speaker 1: had to have faith, like you told me it was

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Speaker 1: going to happen, so I believed you was it youth totally.

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Speaker 1: I was just talking with Alan Goodman, my soon to

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Speaker 1: be partner at that point, and he said, you know,

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Speaker 1: we didn't really know what was going to happen, but

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Speaker 1: you looked at all the other people that were around

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Speaker 1: you and it just had to happen. I think that's

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Speaker 1: really true. I don't know if you remember, but we

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Speaker 1: went to the head of Warner Communications in American Express,

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Speaker 1: and we got a meeting with Steve Ross, who the

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Speaker 1: CEO of Warner, along with his deputies David Horowitz, etc.

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Speaker 1: And we got Jim Robinson and his deputy Luke Gershner

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Speaker 1: from American Express. We were worried that when we showed

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Speaker 1: these videos too, from American Express got so he said,

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Speaker 1: let's find the tamest one of mine. I think we

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Speaker 1: found Olivia Newton John if you remember. But in the

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Speaker 1: meeting they said you have to play that kind of stuff,

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Speaker 1: implying Olivia Newton John was too hard. But to their credit,

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Speaker 1: Jim Robinson's the first one to say, Okay, I'm in

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Speaker 1: for my half. How about you, Steve so awesome we

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Speaker 1: locked out. The MTV crew we assembled was a bunch

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Speaker 1: of lovable misfits and future Viacom MTV CEO Tom Freston

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Speaker 1: was no different. It spent several years living in Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: reporting clothes and having adventures across Asia, but when things

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Speaker 1: got two political overseas, he made his way back and

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Speaker 1: so so you don't think Tom went soft sitting to

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Speaker 1: top Viacom. After he left the company, he returned Afghanistan

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Speaker 1: and even has a wonderful story about lying on the

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Speaker 1: floor and a bar in football with a firefight going

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Speaker 1: on all around, the bullets whizzing overhead. I was always

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out where would I fit in in

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Speaker 1: the business world. I wasn't an artist, per se. I

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Speaker 1: wasn't a writer or a musician, but I wanted to

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Speaker 1: always be around creative people. My first grown up jobs. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: we're working in an ad agency. My first account there

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Speaker 1: I worked on was Gi Joe now Mine. This was

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Speaker 1: sort of at the height of the Vietnam War and

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Speaker 1: I was in an alienated state to begin with. When

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Speaker 1: they were going to sign me to a charm in

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Speaker 1: toilet paper, that was sort of my last straw. I

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Speaker 1: called an ex girlfriend who lived in Paris. I said,

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Speaker 1: they want me to work on a toilet paper account

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Speaker 1: where they had segmented the population and too rollers, folders

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Speaker 1: and crumplers. And she says, well, you can't do that.

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Speaker 1: You should quit that job. Dupia Moron, come with me.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to go across the Sahara Desert. I'm in Paris.

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Speaker 1: So I was on a plane like ten days later.

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Speaker 1: That was it for me. So Tom set up his

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Speaker 1: clothing company, Hindu Kush, and ran that successfully for a

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Speaker 1: long while. When I was riven out of Asia, I thought,

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Speaker 1: whatever I do next, I wanted to be something that

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Speaker 1: I also loved deeply, and that was music. So I'm

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Speaker 1: methodically looked around getting a job in the music business.

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Speaker 1: Through connections. I ended up in John Lack's office and

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Speaker 1: I told him I thought this is a fantastic idea.

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Speaker 1: He says, we're looking for people who have no experience

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Speaker 1: in television. I said, I'm your man. They didn't even

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Speaker 1: have television where I've been living in the last eight years.

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Speaker 1: We were both originally brought to the company for other jobs,

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Speaker 1: by the way, before the MTV development even began, by

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Speaker 1: the incredibly charismatic John Lack, who had this wonderful affliction.

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Speaker 1: He liked to hire people for roles they had never

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Speaker 1: had before, and you and I benefited from that. But

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Speaker 1: you got in here the cable revolution wasn't even recognized

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Speaker 1: as being a revolution. Yet, what did you think you

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Speaker 1: were getting into? I mean, this was still sort of

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Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse compared to the TV business. I thought I

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Speaker 1: was getting into one of the greatest ideas that had

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Speaker 1: ever come around. I had spent parts of the summers

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Speaker 1: in Europe, and I was familiar with the music video

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Speaker 1: which were largely unknown to American audiences, and they were infectious,

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Speaker 1: and I thought MTV, like all of us on the team,

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Speaker 1: was really one of the great ideas. And all of

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Speaker 1: us were essentially on a crusade. We got paid nothing.

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Speaker 1: It was the early eighties version of a startup very

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Speaker 1: much so, and if you looked at the media environment

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Speaker 1: then nothing had really changed in years. The only thing

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Speaker 1: that had come around knew had been FM radio. There

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Speaker 1: was still three TV networks. Pong was only a few

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Speaker 1: years old. Remember we used to say we're going to

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Speaker 1: do to FM what FM did to AM. That was

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Speaker 1: our big plane, twenty five channels in the home, can

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Speaker 1: you imagine. Judy McGrath was another key employee in the

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Speaker 1: early days. She eventually rose to be CEO of MTV Networks.

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Speaker 1: Here she is reminiscing about what it meant to make

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Speaker 1: the rules up as we went along. The beauty and

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Speaker 1: the wonder of MTV was that it was really filled

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Speaker 1: with people that I thought could not find gainful employment

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Speaker 1: anywhere else. We couldn't. No, it would be somebody who

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Speaker 1: had never really shot anything and just wanted to get

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Speaker 1: their hands on a camera try it, and we were

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Speaker 1: willing to do that, so I would say absolutely, but remember,

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Speaker 1: don't fall in love with your own idea. This is

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Speaker 1: about someone else, not you. This is about the person

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Speaker 1: on the other side. They're like you, but you can't

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Speaker 1: make this just for you. And there are really no

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Speaker 1: other rules aside from no full frontal nudity, go out

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Speaker 1: there and do it. And it was so much fun

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Speaker 1: to have the freedom to meet people who were far

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Speaker 1: more creative than I was. I mean, when I joined,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about television. I didn't even like it.

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Speaker 1: My interview was with Fred, who said, so, what kind

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Speaker 1: of music do you like? And I think I said

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Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen. I'm not sure. He said, well, you're wrong,

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Speaker 1: and I'll tell you why. And then about forty five

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Speaker 1: minutes later I left, not having said anything else, and

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Speaker 1: the next thing I know, they were like, well, you know, look,

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Speaker 1: this is just a few of us. We're trying to

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Speaker 1: get this thing going. If you'd like to join, And

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Speaker 1: it was kind of like, how fast can I get

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Speaker 1: out the door of Conde Nas and jump on this thing?

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Speaker 1: Whatever it is? These people are crazy. What's funny is

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Speaker 1: that when I asked Fred about it, he remembered the

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Speaker 1: story exactly the same way. She said Bruce Springsteen and

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Speaker 1: I said wrong because I don't have a good thing

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Speaker 1: about Bruce. The fact that she cared, you know, the

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Speaker 1: Bruce haters are coming after you right now. Believe me,

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Speaker 1: They've been coming after me my whole life. The fact

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Speaker 1: that she cared meant all the difference to me in

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Speaker 1: the world. Not that I agreed, you know, I've just

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Speaker 1: found the camaraderie and the purpose and the sheer invention

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Speaker 1: of something that didn't exist so irresistible. And again, on

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Speaker 1: the math side of it, I was saying, I mean

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Speaker 1: this with all sincerity. You had a map in the

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Speaker 1: creative group, you had a plan, and the plan were promises,

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Speaker 1: and I loved that. I am making a promise to you.

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Speaker 1: You sit here, I'm going to deliver something that you've

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Speaker 1: been waiting for. It is the first music television network.

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Speaker 1: It is exactly for you. And I thought, wow, I

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Speaker 1: want my MTV and I have no idea what it is,

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Speaker 1: but those are powerful words my in an era of

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Speaker 1: before social media and social engagement. Something for me that

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Speaker 1: felt like mine and want what a powerful word, right,

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Speaker 1: I want my MTV. I took that very seriously. I

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Speaker 1: took those promises to heart. Twenty four hours a day

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Speaker 1: terrific in stereo, Not really, but you know, hey, it's

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Speaker 1: that sounded good for those ten people who did have stereo.

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Speaker 1: I remember you saying that we want people to think

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Speaker 1: it sounds better than regular television. And they did. It

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Speaker 1: just felt to me like if I could marry all

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Speaker 1: the things I'm interested in with these set of principles

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Speaker 1: and join this crazy band of people who have no

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Speaker 1: right and a lot of audacity and a firm belief

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Speaker 1: that this can work. What a gift. I never looked back,

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Speaker 1: not one second. Let's go back to Fred and chat

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Speaker 1: about that iconic MTV logo. Talk about the logo. You

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Speaker 1: set out, you've got the mission. You and I had

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Speaker 1: these discussions. I naively say, we'll do our own Star

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Speaker 1: Wars logo because everybody has a Star Wars logo, and

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Speaker 1: you go, the bob Ours will look cheap. You said, look,

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Speaker 1: if we do something no one's ever seen before, they

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Speaker 1: won't know it's cheap. So tell me about the logo. Well,

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Speaker 1: the logo itself actually came about because I was too

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Speaker 1: scared to go to someone famous. I wanted to go

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Speaker 1: to Milton Glazer, who's one of the most famous graphic

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Speaker 1: designers of the last fifty years. And I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: well he's gonna be really expensive, and oh he'll get

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Speaker 1: all the credit. And I wanted a little credit, you know,

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Speaker 1: at least, so my childhood friend who I've known since

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Speaker 1: I'm four years old. A guy named Frank Olinsky had

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Speaker 1: just started a little design firm behind a tie Chief

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Speaker 1: studio above Bigelow Chemists on Sixth Avenue. And Frank had

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Speaker 1: been the guy, because he's a year older than me,

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Speaker 1: who would always introduced me to every new rock band.

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Speaker 1: He introduced me to the Monkeys, he introduced me to

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Speaker 1: the Mothers of Invention, to the Who, to Jeff Beck.

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Speaker 1: So I go down to his little TIChE studio place

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Speaker 1: and I go, will you guys design a logo for

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Speaker 1: this rock channel we're starting? And they were like yes,

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Speaker 1: And they didn't ask me anything. They didn't ask me

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Speaker 1: how much they were going to get paid or anything

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Speaker 1: like that. And this was right after you sent out

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Speaker 1: the first memo in June of nineteen eighty, and boy

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Speaker 1: do I wish I had that memo. So for a

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Speaker 1: year they designed logos and I just rejected everything, probably

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Speaker 1: five hundred designs. Finally they come in the office one day.

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Speaker 1: We're actually going to go on the air soon, right,

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Speaker 1: and we still don't have anything, and they bring a

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Speaker 1: pile and I'm like, no, no, I'm going through the

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Speaker 1: whole pile. And at the bottom of the pile is

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Speaker 1: a piece of tracing paper. Remember that, you know the

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Speaker 1: paper you could see through and it was all wrinkled

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Speaker 1: and they had flattened it out. It was just like

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Speaker 1: a sketched TV and went, Okay, that's the one I

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Speaker 1: can see. Frank like rowling. He and I now disagree.

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Speaker 1: But what I had heard is that there's three partners

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Speaker 1: and one of them wasn't really a designer. She was

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Speaker 1: a production manager and she had done it, and Frank

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Speaker 1: saw it and hated him, threw it in the garbage.

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Speaker 1: She fished it out and put it at the bottom

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Speaker 1: of the pile. He says, that's not true, but you know,

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Speaker 1: raised for a good story. The only reason I said

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Speaker 1: yes is that Dale had taught me one lesson about design.

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Speaker 1: You need to dominate the space, and that big block

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Speaker 1: em was the only thing they showed that when you

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Speaker 1: put it on a TV screen, filled the whole screen.

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Speaker 1: I'm okay, we dominate the space. And in a world

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Speaker 1: of thirty channels and a day when the screen was

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Speaker 1: square exactly right. So then I go, oh, you know,

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Speaker 1: we need official colors. So they come to my office

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Speaker 1: with about ten different boards and then a little board

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Speaker 1: where Frank had illustrated ten or twelve of them on

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Speaker 1: acrylic overlays and said, this one will be for the

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Speaker 1: heavy metal show and this one will be for the

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Speaker 1: new Wave show. And I'm like, Frank, we're not going

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Speaker 1: to have shows, you know. I put it aside. So

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Speaker 1: I put all of the boards up on my pegboard

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Speaker 1: and couldn't decide, and this one on literally for like

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Speaker 1: weeks and weeks and weeks. And then I start looking

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Speaker 1: at his little acrylic thing with all the illustration, and

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Speaker 1: I said, why don't we just use them all at

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Speaker 1: once all the time? Or television we move, shouldn't the

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Speaker 1: logo move? And to be honest with you, that was

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Speaker 1: my first real revelation that I was in television, that

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Speaker 1: we had come up with an idea that only worked

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Speaker 1: in television. You actually were the guy who inspired us

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Speaker 1: to do animated logos. I said, well, what are we

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Speaker 1: going to do in between the videos and the VJs?

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Speaker 1: That are We're going to do jingles? And he went, oh, no,

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Speaker 1: we can't do jingles. And I said, what do we do?

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Speaker 1: He said, how about this? Imagine it's like a picture

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Speaker 1: of a cow. I said, yeah, he said, and all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, an X comes down and cuts the

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Speaker 1: cow's head off and it falls to the ground and

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Speaker 1: you see the veins coming out and the blood spurting out,

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Speaker 1: and the cow vomits, and in the vomit is the logo.

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Speaker 1: I went, Oh my god, I can do anything I want.

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Speaker 1: This is the most exciting moment of my life. And

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Speaker 1: we started hiring animators to do all that stuff. The

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Speaker 1: other thing you did when you did those promos, you

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Speaker 1: laid the music bed down first and cut to the music.

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Speaker 1: People forget this. They don't realize that was an innovation.

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Speaker 1: So I got that all from Dale and when we

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Speaker 1: started making our first radio spots, we would film country

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Speaker 1: music stars and then he said, well, go to the

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Speaker 1: audio studio and cut the audio track. And I went, well,

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Speaker 1: the video guy tells me, no, you have to first

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Speaker 1: do the picture. And then he goes, Fred, we own

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Speaker 1: the audio studio. It's free. If you get it right

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Speaker 1: in the audio studio, then the three hundred dollars an

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Speaker 1: hour video studio will go much faster. By the time

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Speaker 1: we got to MTV, I realized that he was absolutely right.

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Speaker 1: Now fast forward twenty years, I go to MTV one

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Speaker 1: day and I go, who's the promo department? Now on

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Speaker 1: the one you're the one? Well, what are you talking about?

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Speaker 1: And they said, they make us do the audio first.

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Speaker 1: We're filmed. People like why. So twenty years later they

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Speaker 1: were still doing it. But boy, what it did is

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Speaker 1: it brought rhythm. So we had a logo and we

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Speaker 1: were a band of believers. But part of getting MTV

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Speaker 1: to stick was proving the channel's worth to the record companies.

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Speaker 1: Artists loved the idea being on TV, but the labels

408
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Speaker 1: needed to be convinced. At the time, Daven said music

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Speaker 1: should be heard and not seen. We needed a case study,

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Speaker 1: a story to prove we sold records. I talked to

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Speaker 1: John Sykes about it. We launch MTV, we get it underway.

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Speaker 1: We're trying to get some evidence that it's working because

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Speaker 1: the record companies are hemorrhaging money those years. They were

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Speaker 1: thinking about cutting videos out of their budget, which of

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Speaker 1: course we've been disaster for. So we said we got

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Speaker 1: to get some evidence ahead of the budget cycle. And

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Speaker 1: you and Tom Freston go on the road to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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Speaker 1: Just told on a second, because we've got so much

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Speaker 1: more to talk about. We'll be back after a quick

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Speaker 1: break some of what happened in Tulsa. We believe this

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Speaker 1: was working, We felt it, but we needed facts. We

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Speaker 1: needed to convince a record business. So it was like,

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Speaker 1: we need a story, Tom, John, go on their own,

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Speaker 1: don't come back. You have a story. And Tulsa didn't

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Speaker 1: happen until we went to Syracuse, Houston and we went

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Speaker 1: to the cable markets. So Tom and I driving through

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Speaker 1: Tulsa in a rental car literally with a map of

428
00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:53,760
Speaker 1: record stores and going into places. So you sold any

429
00:21:54,160 --> 00:22:00,919
Speaker 1: please records selling Duran Duran, you seliny Tulips to Nope, Nope,

430
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: So we kept driving driving. I still remember it was

431
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:06,399
Speaker 1: a record store in an old house and Tom alize

432
00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:10,560
Speaker 1: Trudgin and we say solely this so only that, solely

433
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:15,439
Speaker 1: durand drand Ran I sold two boxes of Durandrean records

434
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:20,359
Speaker 1: last week. What is you sold, Toback? You sold fifty records,

435
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 1: twenty five records in a box. Can we have your

436
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:26,200
Speaker 1: name and can we use your phone? We called the

437
00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:28,639
Speaker 1: box said Bob, Bob, we have a story. We have

438
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 1: a story. We have a record store that's selling music's

439
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,120
Speaker 1: only played on MTV. And he said, great, get a name,

440
00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:36,800
Speaker 1: get the information. We need an article, and so we

441
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:38,800
Speaker 1: hang up the phone. I turned to Tom, Tom, we

442
00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 1: get to go home. And we took that and we

443
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 1: wrote it as a case study and we ran it

444
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:47,240
Speaker 1: in bill Board and the music magazines to influence the

445
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:50,359
Speaker 1: record company. I'll keep going, I have, of course you do.

446
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 1: You have everything we ever did at MTV. You are

447
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 1: the pack rat. I have that one sheet MTV sales records.

448
00:22:57,520 --> 00:22:59,920
Speaker 1: Joey Smith, and boy that Joey Smith. Wherever you are

449
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 1: and tell us Oklahoma, thank you. If you're wondering why

450
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:08,679
Speaker 1: we picked those places, Syracuse, Houston, Tulsa, it's because those

451
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,880
Speaker 1: were the few markets where we had enough cable density

452
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:14,919
Speaker 1: that we could make a point. These cities ended up

453
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:17,920
Speaker 1: being little laboratories where we could peek in and take

454
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:21,399
Speaker 1: measurements and show the world just how effective MTV was

455
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:23,639
Speaker 1: going to be. So it proved our worth to the

456
00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:26,680
Speaker 1: record companies. But you have to remember we still had

457
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 1: to convince cable operators to carry MTV. They wanted to

458
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,440
Speaker 1: be paid to carry our channel, and frankly, we didn't

459
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:35,639
Speaker 1: have the money. So we had to come up with

460
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:39,200
Speaker 1: a breakthrough idea and genius campaign that could do all

461
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 1: the heavy lifting here, Tom Preston and Fred Seibert telling

462
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: that story. Let's start the talk. When we launched MTV,

463
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:51,360
Speaker 1: you were the head of marketing. The cable operator wouldn't

464
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:54,200
Speaker 1: put MTV on. They wanted us to pay them. One,

465
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: we didn't have the money, and two that was probably

466
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: a slippery slope, and so we decided we would use

467
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 1: a whole strategy to get distribution. I want my MTV.

468
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 1: Well it was sort of a hail Mary pass because

469
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:07,399
Speaker 1: you know, we're about to go under. No one in

470
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: the organization knew we were about to go under, So

471
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 1: how are we going to get these cable operators to

472
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:15,879
Speaker 1: add us? When we knew in fact that the people

473
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: who actually had it in the few towns where it existed,

474
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 1: they loved it. They were fanatical about it. So we

475
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 1: actually had to go over their heads. And the idea

476
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: was that campaign I want my MAPO, which I remembered

477
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,199
Speaker 1: as a baby boomer in the fifties. I'm obnoxious, I

478
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 1: want my MAPO, but I want my MTV. The actual

479
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:34,760
Speaker 1: spot said they grew up with rock and roll, they

480
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 1: grew up with television. Now they want their MTV. George Lois,

481
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 1: who never saw something that he couldn't copy. Had already

482
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: copied a famous TV commercial from the fifties called I

483
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: Want my mapo for a really horrendous tasting exactly, and

484
00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:00,040
Speaker 1: he redid it with Mick Jagger and David Bowie. And

485
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: on the beginning of the spot he had Pete Townsend

486
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 1: doing it America, demand your MTV, and people go, I

487
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 1: want my MTV, I want my MTV. And then Pete

488
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 1: Townsend again with a telephone going pull your cable operator

489
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: and say I want And they showed us this spot.

490
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: If we could get major rock stars in a commercial

491
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 1: to kind of hold our logo, validate and hold it

492
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,439
Speaker 1: and command people to call their cable company and demand

493
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: their MTV, make it look cool, put some animation around it,

494
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 1: and then put it in these markets at very high frequency.

495
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:35,879
Speaker 1: We go into a market and it could be like

496
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: a Blockbuster movie was opening. Most people in the market

497
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: had never heard of MTV. So we went and we

498
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 1: pitched it to you. I think you saw the feeling

499
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: of it right away. Well, there's a lesson in this

500
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,679
Speaker 1: too that you've always done very very well, which is

501
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 1: harnessing the power of partners. And in the case of

502
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: I want my MTV music stars who were willing to

503
00:25:56,600 --> 00:26:00,400
Speaker 1: be in the commercial for free to help us accomplish goals.

504
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: But you also have music companies and others. Dale was

505
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: this brilliant hybrid of a strategist and a creative guy.

506
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 1: And as a strategist, what he understood is that we

507
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 1: had no money to spend on this ad. I remember

508
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: going into our boss's office and saying, but HBO spending

509
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 1: ten million dollars a year in advertising, goes, you're lucky

510
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: you have two somehow or other. The people in the

511
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 1: media business didn't actually believe in advertising as the weirdest thing,

512
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: and so I went to Dale. I said, look, we

513
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: only have two million dollars, and he did an incredible

514
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:41,680
Speaker 1: data dump of where could MTV be put on against

515
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 1: how much media cost in that particular market, and he

516
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: did three or four or five cross tabs to figure

517
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:52,679
Speaker 1: out the most likely places that if we put on

518
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 1: these spots, that we would get people calling and making

519
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:01,240
Speaker 1: the cable operators insane. And god knows, I think we

520
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: made customer representatives from all over America crazy within four weeks.

521
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know, every cable operator if there were

522
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: eleven of them, in a market, which would not be

523
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: unusual time they'd all call up and surrender. So we

524
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 1: would move a market by market for a couple of

525
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: years across the country, going from like what was seven

526
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 1: million subscribers ended up being eighty or ninety a million.

527
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: I had a guy stopped me at a cable operator

528
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:25,639
Speaker 1: and said, I hate you, and I go, why do

529
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 1: you hate me? And he goes, because my phone rings

530
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: all day with those people saying I want my mule,

531
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: I can't get any work done. In my chats with

532
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: the co founders, there's a lot of fondness for this

533
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: deviant culture we had. MTV was fine. It was definitely

534
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,919
Speaker 1: anti establishment, and the truth is even the promotions dripped

535
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,199
Speaker 1: with the brand sensibility. In some ways they defined the

536
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 1: brand sensibility. There's some of the crazy stories too. It

537
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,480
Speaker 1: was fun reminiscing with John Sykes about them. You were

538
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: the guy who did the promotions. You came up with

539
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: these ideas and fortunately unfortunately with the one that also

540
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: executed them. Did to Paint the House paint promotion with

541
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: John Mellencamp, you did the Last Weekend with Van Halen.

542
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: What formula were you using? Goes back to that s

543
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: connected New York thing of being a dreamer, because I

544
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: was the kid. I was the viewer who thought, oh

545
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 1: my god, if only I could dot dot dot. So

546
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:25,120
Speaker 1: when you said we've got to put together some promotions,

547
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: we got to go bigger than life. We go, what

548
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 1: are we gonna do? I just said to myself, Okay,

549
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 1: what would anybody give their eye teeth to do? What

550
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: would be the fantasy of all fantasies? And I remember

551
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: just John had done a song called pink Houses. So

552
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: let's give away a house and you we're gonna paint

553
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: the mother pink. Tell us about the first house you bought.

554
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: When you had to execute it, I means you got

555
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: to go find a house, got to go buy a house.

556
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: You had to go actually get a team to paint

557
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 1: it pink. You gotta go fly people in. So we went,

558
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: and you had no money, so we had to buy

559
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 1: the chiefest house you could find. So Bob goes, take

560
00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: a cashier's check and just go buy a house. And

561
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: I okay. So I flew in Indiana and John Mellencamp,

562
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 1: who loved the idea, sends his ex wife to meet

563
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 1: me to show me around it. Buy some house, she's

564
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: a realtor. So we go and I go, okay. I

565
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: got about two hours before I get the flight back

566
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: to New York. Show me four houses. First house we buy,

567
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: the woman is there, just cookies for me. The kids

568
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: are out front, they've cleaned it up. This was a shock.

569
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: I felt so bad for her. She was a single mom.

570
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: Look at this house, and I said, we'll do It's

571
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: a we can paint this pink. So I wrote a

572
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: check thirty two thousand dollars, bought the house. Her jaw dropped.

573
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: No realator, just handed the check and got in the car.

574
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: Drove back when you opened up Rolling Stone. Three weeks later,

575
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: MTV buys house on toxic waste dump. So so I

576
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: call you go Bob. I had no idea. John Mellencamp

577
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: writes me letters I have today. Dear John, I'm sure

578
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 1: you've read Rolling Stone by now, and I'm sure you

579
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to give a house on a toxic waste dump.

580
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: And I'm going, oh my god, we're stuck with a house.

581
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: So I had to back can get an other house.

582
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 1: But that's not the good double the budget, the budget.

583
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: The good story was the last weekend with Van Halen.

584
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: That one really really defined MTV as a serious, dangerous

585
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: rock and roll brand to consumers. There was a movie

586
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: called The Last Weekend. Gray Mullan was in there and

587
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: guy loses his mind whatever, and so we just said,

588
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 1: let's do a Last week with the band. Who's the

589
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: craziest band out there right now? Van Halen. Van Halen

590
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: wouldn't do any promotion because they were worried about their image.

591
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: We called them with the ideas like we're in, We're in,

592
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: and by the way, will fulfill the contest. You don't

593
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: have to do anything. Just drop off the fans with

594
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: us and we'll deliver them back on Sunday. So we

595
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: did that. The kid arrives and they take him at

596
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: four o'clock in the afternoon right into the backstage and

597
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: everything you can imagine what happened with Van Halen happened.

598
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: So by the time the band goes on stage at

599
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: nine o'clock at night, this guy is fried. There's been

600
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: things that were not a Warner MX and condoled or

601
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: MTV nuous activity. So he's standing on stage completely out

602
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: of his mind and David Lee Roth goes, we have

603
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: the winner tonight of the MTV Lost Weekend, Joe Smith,

604
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: you know, Joe Congratulations. They bring out a giant sheet cake.

605
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: He's got his hands up from there and the bands

606
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: around him, and they take the sheet cake and they

607
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: push it into his face and the guy is stunned

608
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: and he starts twirling around swinging punches at the band.

609
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: The band freaks out. They take him off and they

610
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: bring him backstage and we say to his friend, what's

611
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 1: wrong with him? And he said, we forgot to tell you.

612
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: He has a middle plate in his head. He was

613
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: in an accident. He's not supposed to drink, so they

614
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: had to put him in a room with a security

615
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: guard all night. But that kind of made the legend

616
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 1: of MTV. I wish we could take credit for that,

617
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: but that was it, so the contest. But maybe we're

618
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: lucky we can't take credit for it. You know what

619
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: those contests did, They creates the fantasy and the aspiration

620
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: that makes someone want to be attracted to a product.

621
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: MTV could have been a flash in the pan, but

622
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: the marketing spirit capturing an attitude that young America responded to.

623
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: People tuned in just to see what was going on

624
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: in MTV. It was a place to hang out, and

625
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: as the word spread, the channel made money. Although MTV

626
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 1: was the most radical of the cable channels, it was

627
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:13,800
Speaker 1: also the first cable network to actually make a profit,

628
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: and we had the highest AD revenue of any of

629
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 1: the cable networks. I remember this was a time when

630
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: people didn't believe cable networks could even be profitable. Boy

631
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: did that feel good. But part of keeping the channel

632
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: successful was continuing to think outside the mainstream and continue

633
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: to come up with new ideas. Here's bread again. We

634
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,479
Speaker 1: had these creative promo departments. Once people came in and

635
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: started saying, well, I worked on promos over here, I

636
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: didn't want to hire them. One of the earliest people

637
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: I hired had just come out of film school and

638
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: his first job was cutting film negatives at a pornout play.

639
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, fine, you won't remember this. But

640
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: one day you called me into your office and you said, hey,

641
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: I need you to be the head of production. I said, Bob,

642
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: you know, I've never seen even the red light on

643
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,479
Speaker 1: top of a camera go on. And you went, oh,

644
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 1: don't worry, you'll figure it out. And that was that,

645
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I was in television and

646
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 1: you did a really great job. Thank you. But it

647
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 1: wasn't just people like Fred who got an opportunity to MTV.

648
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: You're Judy and Tom talking about how he kept an

649
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: eye out from new talent and groomed them upward, and

650
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 1: the culture that the two of them kept going and

651
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 1: kept building at the company even after I left. If

652
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 1: you think about it, in the days of MTV, we're

653
00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: probably looking back at an extraordinary number of women and

654
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 1: very important roles. Today would be crowing about it. Probably,

655
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: you know, whether you like it or not. You have

656
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: been mentoring people, You've been setting an example. How do

657
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: you handle that responsibility? What do you do consciously about that?

658
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: I began to see I was sort of a better

659
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: editor coach than I was a player. I can remember

660
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 1: some things that just felt like personal milestones to me.

661
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: You know. One of the great fun things I got

662
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: to do would be hang out in the rehearsals for

663
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 1: the Video Music Awards, and I was there and I

664
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: was thinking, Wow, you know, we've got a female director.

665
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 1: We have a female on stage managing the crew. We

666
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,319
Speaker 1: have a young woman who's the head writer. We have

667
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: a young woman in charge of seating in events, but

668
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: we've got women in roles that were not traditionally women's roles.

669
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 1: They were just really good. And I do think it's

670
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,760
Speaker 1: incumbent on somebody who gets an opportunity, like I got

671
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:32,439
Speaker 1: to look out for underrepresented people in general. And so

672
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: you know, when Beth McCarthy Miller raised her hand, was

673
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 1: an easy like, let's let Beth direct, come on, like,

674
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:41,319
Speaker 1: she can do it. We know she can do it.

675
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: Everybody knows she can do it. And I looked around

676
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: and thought, wow, this whole thing is kind of really

677
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: looking very different than most of the other sets that

678
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,760
Speaker 1: I've been on. I once heard Tina Fey say something

679
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: about it's a panel where a bunch of women were

680
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: sort of congratulating each other for different things, and someone

681
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,280
Speaker 1: said they were lucky, and a bunch of other women

682
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 1: jumped on her and said, oh my god. Women always

683
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: say they're lucky. Men never say they're lucky. You made

684
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 1: your own luck. And Tina was actually very thoughtful about it,

685
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 1: and she said, I think timing plays a role in

686
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: something as well as luck and talent. And you know,

687
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: I always felt like I worked with men who are

688
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:24,399
Speaker 1: not typical and young employees who are not typical. So

689
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: how ridiculous would it be to take a typical approach

690
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 1: to anything else. We were up ending tradition all the time,

691
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 1: and not just for the sake of doing it, but

692
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: because you give somebody a chance, they'll knock themselves out

693
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 1: to show you that they could really do it. And

694
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: we actually talked about it back then. We said, you know,

695
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: if somebody's done three or four things and they're not great,

696
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: we have empirical evidence they won't be great. Yeah, but

697
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:51,279
Speaker 1: if we give somebody a shot who's never done it,

698
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: they could be the next Steven Spielberg, exactly right. And

699
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: the only way we're going to find out is to

700
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 1: take a shot. And you continue to do that through

701
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 1: your career. A lot of focus was on eating a

702
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: culture that would attract creative people. They would want to

703
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: come and live there. I mean, we'd have at one

704
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: point Chud Apatow or Ben Stiller or John Stewart, Stephen Cober,

705
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: you know, Adam Sandler would like be sleeping in the offices. Sometime.

706
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: It was a hothouse atmosphere. You were probably the first

707
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: talent incubator. I don't think they called them that back then.

708
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: How did you pull that together because it is really

709
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:22,880
Speaker 1: remarkable to people you had, well, a lot of it

710
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: is sort of what's the vibe of the place. We

711
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 1: always wanted to make the room for deviancy. I would

712
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: always say, who's the odd ball person, Who's the intern

713
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:32,440
Speaker 1: who's going to come running in with an idea like

714
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 1: Yo MTV raps. That was like a twenty one year

715
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: old intern who came up with a demo in his basement.

716
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 1: Because we had these networks, there was a lot of

717
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: room for experimentation. Everything you made didn't have to be

718
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: really tightly organized. There was a lot of room for

719
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 1: improvisation and innovation. Well, if you have a hallmark for that,

720
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 1: people would want to step up and follow. What's he

721
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 1: Just try and have good standards, provide guard rails for people,

722
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: celebrate risk, you know, we give creative people a lot

723
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: of freedom. One of the people who was crucial tim

724
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:04,399
Speaker 1: Ted's early success it was former MPR CEO y'arre Moon.

725
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 1: Y'arll and I went way back. We even had a

726
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:10,399
Speaker 1: show called Album Tracks that aired after Saturday Night Live.

727
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: But y'arall had an incredible eye for programming and when

728
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: MTV had to think beyond music, videos. He played a

729
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: crucial role for me. It was a great transition from

730
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 1: the radio world to the television world because there were

731
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 1: so many similarities. If you had picked me up and

732
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: tried to drop me into a broadcast network to do

733
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 1: scripted filmed entertainment, I would have I think, flailed and

734
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: failed miserably. But ultimately we all learned a lot of

735
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 1: lessons about the fragility of this brand new thing, music videos,

736
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: and that was something that we all kind of had

737
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 1: to learn in real time. It was humbling, it was embarrassing,

738
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:53,320
Speaker 1: and it didn't even think it stopped working. There was

739
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: so much heat around music videos at the time, and

740
00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: there were so many people watching and being really enthralled by.

741
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 1: But I think ultimately it became less interesting. It was

742
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 1: television and we were using a lot I was at

743
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:10,720
Speaker 1: least using a lot of radio rules for a different medium,

744
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 1: and people were making four minute decisions of what they

745
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: were going to watch, a not thirty minute and sixty

746
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:20,760
Speaker 1: minute or ninety minute decisions, and ultimately had to switch

747
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 1: strategy to go to content that people would watch for

748
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:28,279
Speaker 1: longer periods of time, long form, and that was very

749
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 1: controversial at the time, but you know, it worked. What

750
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: were your first shows? And we started with the Weekend

751
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:38,479
Speaker 1: Rock and hiring Kurtloader from Rolling Stone magazine and taking

752
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,240
Speaker 1: the MTV news segments and making it a half hour show,

753
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: and that worked, and then rockumentaries as specials as the second.

754
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 1: The third was Club MTV, Let's do an American bandstand

755
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 1: for today, Let's play music videos and hire Downtown Julie Brown.

756
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 1: That was a hit. Every show that went on did well.

757
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: Then we're going to really cocky and think, man, we

758
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 1: really know how to make hits. But I think it

759
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 1: was more a reflection of the fact that music videos

760
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:09,959
Speaker 1: at the time had run their course. The most controversial

761
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: one remote Control of the game show, and all the

762
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: research came back said you can't do a game show.

763
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: And I remember saying to our good friend Marshall Cohen.

764
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,240
Speaker 1: We worked with an MTV research guru. Yes, I said,

765
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: I think we're asking the wrong question. The question should

766
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:28,840
Speaker 1: be if we were to do a game show, what

767
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:33,439
Speaker 1: would it look like? And the answer came back, well,

768
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: it should be irreverence to be crazy. We used all

769
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:41,279
Speaker 1: the information and hired Ken Ober and Colin Quinn and

770
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: Adam Sandler was a regular on the show and it

771
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 1: was a monster, but the additional research the way we

772
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 1: asked it indicated that not have been a disaster. It

773
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: worked out great for were you a yep, oh yeah, yeah.

774
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,920
Speaker 1: So MTV started to with new formats, but as Preston

775
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:07,200
Speaker 1: remembers it, the limited budgets were actually an engine for creativity.

776
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 1: We couldn't just innovate it by shuffling the music mix

777
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 1: or changing things. That was clear. We tried everything. We

778
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: just couldn't play the top ten videos all day long.

779
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: There was always new shows coming around. We would add

780
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: shows on package music and like on hip hop music

781
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:23,759
Speaker 1: with the OMTV raps and so forth, and it kind

782
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 1: of came down to the real world day That was

783
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three, and that was like, well, we've

784
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:31,240
Speaker 1: tried everything else, we should probably do a soap opera

785
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:33,879
Speaker 1: because young people are interested in what other young people

786
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 1: are doing. So they came in with a presentation to

787
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: me and we had to hire writers, and I said, well,

788
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:41,800
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have any money to hire writers,

789
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:45,839
Speaker 1: so we can't do this. So then Doug Herzog came

790
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 1: back and said, you know, we're really good at post production.

791
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: That's our major skill. What if we just rented aloft

792
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 1: in Soho and stuck some cameras in there and bring

793
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: these kids in and then let them live and then

794
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: we'll post it afterwards and make it into a show.

795
00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: And that was sort of the birth of reality. It

796
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,759
Speaker 1: was an idea that was not born of brilliance but

797
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: born of cheapskateness. MTV was a success story finally, but

798
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before the competition started circling. Here's Tom

799
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: with the story of what motivated us to start VH one.

800
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: Ted Turner one to come in and basically p in

801
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: our parade. He said he was going to launch a

802
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: music channel that played none of the Devil's music. Let

803
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 1: me say first that the cable music channel lasted one

804
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: hundred and one days on the air and he had

805
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: the fold up and go home. But we decided we

806
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: can't let this happen, and if there's going to be

807
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,720
Speaker 1: a second music channel, we should have a second music channel.

808
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: And we made the case to cable operations, we have

809
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:39,719
Speaker 1: a second music channel. You don't want to add the

810
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: Ted Turner channel because that's just going to go head

811
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 1: to head against the one you already have. Add VH one,

812
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 1: which was called the Very Hot one at the time

813
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 1: because it would be more compatible and it would play

814
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 1: artists for another demo and we would sell a tu

815
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 1: on a combo basis. Basically it was free if you

816
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,319
Speaker 1: already had MTV. So we strangled him in terms of

817
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 1: not being able to get distribution. Therefore no advertising, no revenue,

818
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:04,279
Speaker 1: no light on the end of the tunnel, and he

819
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: went out of business and we went forward. Of course,

820
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:11,360
Speaker 1: launching VH one was one thing. It was a savvy move,

821
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:14,839
Speaker 1: a classic fighting brand. It was essential and fighting off

822
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: ted Turner's channel. But once that was over, the team

823
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: had to figure out what to do with it. The

824
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:24,320
Speaker 1: network struggled for years. Ratings were abysmal, so John Sykes,

825
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 1: who left HIMTV by then it was called back to

826
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: lead the charge. Tom Freston calls Jop says, come home,

827
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,799
Speaker 1: needs you to fix a BH one. What did you do?

828
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: As you know, Bob, because you taught me so much

829
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: of the stuff. A brand is only valuable if there

830
00:42:41,680 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: is an underserved segment of the audience that needs it.

831
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: Hip hop was starting to happen. Alternate music was exploding

832
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 1: and a lot of the traditional rock bands in R

833
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 1: and B bands were being pushed out and they're going

834
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: like an off of the cliff. And I said, there's

835
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 1: a market here, because having run a record company, a

836
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:01,800
Speaker 1: publishing company, we were seeing these artists that used to

837
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 1: be called middle of the road back then, but now

838
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:06,840
Speaker 1: they were actually vibrant popands. They didn't have a place.

839
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: And then I saw who were thoset, powerful buyers, young adults,

840
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: young college graduates. Here's a generation. It's grown up on MTV.

841
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: They have money, they're affluent, and they have nowhere to go.

842
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 1: So I was as excited actually about VH one as

843
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: I was about MTV, and MTV is iconic and it

844
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 1: will be there forever. But the other thing about VH

845
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 1: one to me also was it was my own and

846
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 1: I knew if I fell, it would be on me.

847
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: It would be likes out at VH one fails. They

848
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 1: used to call VH point one. It was the rating

849
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: of it again. And for those people who ratings, ratings

850
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:45,720
Speaker 1: are from zero to whatever, and point one, zero two hundred,

851
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,880
Speaker 1: VH one is the ugly step child at MTV Networks.

852
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: I used to say it was nails out the back

853
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:54,920
Speaker 1: seat of a car to put flats in the tires

854
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:56,800
Speaker 1: of the cars behind us, because we didn't want anybody

855
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: compet with MTV. But I said, now it quietly has

856
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 1: their million homes. There's a market for this. And I

857
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 1: looked in the room and half the people like or

858
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 1: a sleep bicycle that Quenton staying. They had a job,

859
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 1: but they didn't believe in the product, but they were

860
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 1: coflecting a paycheck. So I said, listen, if you don't

861
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 1: believe in this, it's okay. We won't make a big

862
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:17,359
Speaker 1: thing and we're going to fire you, but we'll work

863
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:20,400
Speaker 1: out a package and you should leave because we need

864
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: people who are going to believe in this. There's a

865
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: market for this, and I believe that this is gonna

866
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: be a three hundred million dollar business in the next

867
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: three years if we all focus on that. So people

868
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: came to me and said, I don't want to do this.

869
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 1: I didn't think they I don't thieve it would come like,

870
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,879
Speaker 1: I don't think you're right. I like, okay, well, thank you, bye,

871
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:41,520
Speaker 1: God bye. They all came back three years later looking

872
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 1: for jobs. But it was about believing in yourself, believing

873
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: your idea of hiring people around you who are better

874
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: than you at executing what they did, and we put

875
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:54,719
Speaker 1: together a team at VH one, hooping on to run NBC, Nintendo, Bravo.

876
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 1: We put together an all star trip. So maybe proud

877
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 1: and working with some of the red Stone I mean

878
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 1: Sun at Redstone nineteen ninety four was on his game.

879
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 1: You walked in and said, here's my plan, here's what

880
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: I want to do, and he'd just say, fine, go

881
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: do it. If you don't do it, I'll fire you.

882
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: I say, that's all I want to know, excuse me

883
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: the rope, and he did. It was a great nine years.

884
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: We shattered all the records there, but all good businesses

885
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:20,399
Speaker 1: you got to reinvent them otherwise they paid it off.

886
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: MTV was the starting point of a cable revolution. The

887
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:27,600
Speaker 1: channel and the creative engine we built gave birth to

888
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: so much more. Here's Tom I'm talking about just that topic.

889
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: I was ambitious and I was highly motivated for this

890
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: to succeed. I thought that we were in this TV revolution,

891
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 1: We had the wind at our back. It was all

892
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 1: going to come true. It was too good of an

893
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: idea to fail. You know, a lot of life is

894
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 1: about timing and luck, and I had somehow ended up

895
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: once again in the right place. At the right time,

896
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:53,960
Speaker 1: and this was sort of my destiny. I was going

897
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 1: to meet my opportunity. What you did, you know, I

898
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 1: would say my time there, we really proved it was

899
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 1: a business. Were the first cable network to make a profit.

900
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 1: But it was really you and your team, including Shooting Grath,

901
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 1: who built MTV and the other networks into this incredible

902
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:12,840
Speaker 1: media giant. What drove that in? Where did that vision

903
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: come from? And how did you get there? There's a

904
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:17,359
Speaker 1: compliment to you, Bob, I mean you are the guy

905
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:19,360
Speaker 1: always keep your eye on the consumer, find out what

906
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 1: the consumer want. We would always see this resource the

907
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: consumer wanted what we were selling, and we could tune

908
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 1: it up a bit. And we also had this sort

909
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 1: of slightly subversive, underground feel and you know, there was

910
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 1: nothing really around like that. And we would continue to

911
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: launch new networks Comedy Central or tv Land, and the

912
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: whole international world of television began to deregulate in the

913
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:42,919
Speaker 1: late eighties. All these countries really only had state TV

914
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: pretty much as you know. So the confidence I had

915
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:49,279
Speaker 1: built from my years living in Afghanistan and India was

916
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 1: actually very transfernable because I really knew we could go

917
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 1: anywhere and do anything. And if we could go to Europe,

918
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:56,120
Speaker 1: we could go to Asia, we go to Latin America.

919
00:46:56,280 --> 00:47:00,120
Speaker 1: So we built really the first worldwide television networking company,

920
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 1: and we rolled out not just MTV, but also Nickelodeon

921
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:06,839
Speaker 1: and Comedy Central, a lot of others right down through Africa.

922
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 1: So the business gradually evolved from one where we would

923
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 1: package other people's product like a music video, to where

924
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: we would increasingly own what we did. But at the

925
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 1: heart of it always a creative machine, which again was

926
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 1: something that you put in at the inception of the company.

927
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:25,360
Speaker 1: When we first started MTV, it wasn't just entertainment. We

928
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: built a channel to be the voice of young America

929
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 1: and that included doing good and my time there. MTV

930
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: made its mark with massive events with important missions, Am

931
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: the Sky, International, band Aid, Farm Aid and of course

932
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: Live Aid. But it was Rock the Vote that truly

933
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 1: took the channel into politics, and some say even got

934
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: a president elected. Here's Judy talking about it. You've always

935
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:53,799
Speaker 1: done good, Rock the Vote chooser lose AIDS awareness. How

936
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:56,319
Speaker 1: did you think about that inside of a company and

937
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: how do you think of it for you as a person, Well,

938
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 1: you know, inside MTV. It was very interesting when we

939
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:05,800
Speaker 1: decided to get into you know, and certainly Rock the

940
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 1: Vote was not our idea politics Jeff ear Off. So

941
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 1: Jeff was very passionate about this, and it sort of

942
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:15,800
Speaker 1: grew in to Rock the Vote. And I remember talking

943
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 1: to Tom Freston, with whom I had an extraordinarily great

944
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 1: creative relationship, and this was one of the rare instances

945
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:27,520
Speaker 1: where we had a blowout. Really we really didn't agree,

946
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: but I listened to what he said, and he said,

947
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:34,239
Speaker 1: this is a terrible idea. It's not going to work.

948
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:38,839
Speaker 1: This is an entertainment brand. Nobody cares about this. We're

949
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 1: gonna get laughed out of town. We do not have

950
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:45,240
Speaker 1: permission to do this. There's nothing about us that says

951
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 1: we should be stepping anywhere near an election or voting

952
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 1: or any of this. So I went back and I

953
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: thought about it a little bit, and I thought, Okay,

954
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 1: this is where I come into the picture. I think

955
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 1: I grew up in an era where one of the

956
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: many things I loved about music was its social commentary,

957
00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:02,799
Speaker 1: and it is about the times we live in, and

958
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 1: it's about all the things that affect you in a

959
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 1: very deep way, and I thought, I think there's a

960
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 1: way to do this where it will be engaging. This

961
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: was not about telling young people you need to vote.

962
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:15,399
Speaker 1: That's not the way I looked at it at all.

963
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:18,840
Speaker 1: It was saying, to people who make big decisions in

964
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:23,399
Speaker 1: this country, this is a generation that is disengaged from you,

965
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 1: and you need to address them on their turf, their way,

966
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: and we'll invite you to do that. That's your shot.

967
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: It wasn't about trying to be parental or any of

968
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff to them, or give them boring

969
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 1: facts or anything like that. And so we got as

970
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 1: smart as we could get, and I think I didn't

971
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 1: tell anybody. That's another thing. I sent Tabitha Stor. Tabitha

972
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 1: went to New Hampshire and she called me at like midnight.

973
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: She said, you know, I got up here in like

974
00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: a bunch of candidates are like, what's MTV? And she said,

975
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: and then a couple of them got back off the bus,

976
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 1: primarily Bill Clinton, and said I'll talk to you, and

977
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 1: then we were sort of off and running. And you

978
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 1: know that partnered with incredible creative work on those rock

979
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,040
Speaker 1: to the Vote spots. I mean Madonna wrapped in a

980
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:14,759
Speaker 1: flag whatever, their disagreement, Tom Preston quickly embraced the idea.

981
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 1: We knew it was important to our audience. I also

982
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 1: knew it was extremely important to the employee base. Employees

983
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: would feel better about working there if they knew we

984
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 1: had some kind of social purpose associated with what we

985
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 1: would do, and we had one hundred and sixty eight

986
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 1: hours a week, we could certainly squeeze it in. It

987
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,360
Speaker 1: also turned out it legitimized us in the eyes of

988
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,320
Speaker 1: advertisers who formally wouldn't come near us, like American Express.

989
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 1: But most importantly, the audience liked it. And then fast

990
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 1: forward to you know, we're going to throw an inaugural

991
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: ball that's not official and see if anybody comes to

992
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 1: the party, and our EM's gonna play and Vogue's gonna play,

993
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:49,320
Speaker 1: And we tried to make it as spirited as MTV,

994
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: but add a little bit of gravitas if you will,

995
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 1: and meaning you know, like you do matter. You are young,

996
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: but you matter, and you deserve to be heard and

997
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 1: listen to, and we're going to help you. MTV was

998
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:07,720
Speaker 1: a wonderful ride. From the very beginning. My co founders

999
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 1: and I knew we were doing something that was important

1000
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 1: to culture, but we had no idea we were going

1001
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: to change culture. MTV changed TV, it changed music, it

1002
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:22,319
Speaker 1: changed graphic design, and it certainly changed my life. No

1003
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:24,759
Speaker 1: matter how old I get or whatever else I've done,

1004
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 1: MTV is still an important chapter of my life, and

1005
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:30,760
Speaker 1: all of us as co founders are still very much

1006
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:34,320
Speaker 1: a very type family. But the truth is, looking back,

1007
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: I think we all feel the same way Tom Freston

1008
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:39,680
Speaker 1: felt when he joined the team. I was happy to

1009
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:43,520
Speaker 1: have a job. I couldn't believe anyone was gonna hire me,

1010
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: and lucky for all of us, we all kept getting

1011
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:51,800
Speaker 1: hired again and again. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.

1012
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:58,320
Speaker 1: That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening

1013
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:01,719
Speaker 1: to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio. This show

1014
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:05,040
Speaker 1: is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger

1015
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 1: for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no

1016
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: small feat. Nikki Etour for pulling research bill plaques, and

1017
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:14,720
Speaker 1: Michael Azar for their recording help, our editor, Ryan Murdock,

1018
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,440
Speaker 1: and of course Gail Raoul, Eric Angel, Noel Mango and

1019
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:21,560
Speaker 1: everyone who helped bring this show to your ears. Until

1020
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 1: next time