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In the spring of 1982, I went to stay a long weekend at my paternal grandfather’s house in Santa Clara.  I had my driving permit, and Grampa let me drive all over the place with him that weekend.  He picked me up from school in Palo Alto on a Friday and I drove us to his apartment.  He told me that he just got this thing called, “Cable TV” and that there was a music channel I might like while he put dinner together.  That was when I watched my first video.

I must have watched for hours and hours that night and the next.  I remember Duran Duran and the Flock of Seagulls and Boy George.  I remember seeing videos I’d heard the songs of before and videos where I hadn’t and just becoming mesmerized by the plethora of music coming at me.  That weekend changed things for me.  It opened my ears to sounds and my eyes to fashion.  At my own home, we lived up in the hills and there was no such thing as cable or really much television at all.  Radio was on at my house- not television, so this was new and exciting.

I will never forget that weekend.  Not only did Grampa have me drive to Sacramento on Saturday to spend 45 minutes with my maternal grandma and then drive back, but I watched that new MTV every moment I could.

Over the years, it turned into many channels and most of them… not great.  Lots of game shows of the reality TV variety. I hadn’t watched it in decades, but on 12/31/2025 they officially stopped even pretending to be music.  I will admit that it was a sad realization for me.  I got to watch it come in like a storm, change the world, and then go out like RuPaul’s Drag Race.  All in my lifetime.

Here is a photo of me that Grampa took that night while I sat on the floor basking in the warm glow of MTV on that television set.

Debbie sitting on Grampa’s floor watching MTV

MTV first went on the air almost a year before I knew about it.  August 1, 1981 the words, “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll” were spoken followed by The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.”  MTVs music videos influenced music, culture, and fashion, as well as becoming a bit of a training ground for film directors (see Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry).  Within a few years, they began their non-video programming with The Real Word (one of the first reality TV series) and now the flagship MTV channel continues in that realm, with music videos officially no longer part of MTV.

Without irony, “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the last song played on December 31, 2025 on the MTV Music channel.

Sources:

History.com Editors, “MTV launches | August 1, 1981,” History.com, published November 13, 2009; last updated July 31, 2025, accessed January 3, 2026, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/august-1/mtv-launches

MTV’s Music Channels Shut Down — Fans Mourn ‘End of an Era’, Yahoo Entertainment, published January 2, 2026, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/mtv-music-channels-shut-down-054226117.html

“MTV officially shut down its 24-hour music channel,” Reddit, r/BeAmazed (January 2, 2026), https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/1q1qzrr/mtv_officially_shut_down_its_24hour_music/

And Grampa’s old Polaroid camera

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