Player

Saturday, June 15, 2019

YouTube Spotlight: Cable Music Channel

In this week's Spotlight, we take another look at the Cable Music Channel, the short-lived alternative to MTV. Check out this awesome promo from this week's YouTube playlist devoted to TBS:




Irreverent and exciting...and with Steve Miller! All with I Love L.A. building in the background.

Cable Music Channel launched in October and was gone by December. Ted Turner offered it to cable systems gratis and was, so he said, backed by operators looking for leverage against MTV. Yet the venture was a big money loser, and Ted quickly sold to MTV, which essentially turned it into VH1. that's an oversimplification, but do we really want to know the whole story of Cable Music Channel?

Actually, I do! There has to be a good book or at least long oral history piece in here somewhere, right?

Also from our playlist is this presentation of the channel's debut. Note the attempt at swagger and the assertion that it won't carry the smut that MTV does!


No comments:

Post a Comment