RUMOURS of its demise have been exaggerated. And I fell for it.
I lowered my guard in that early January phase, when you are not up to speed, when you are recovering from too many mince pies and not enough exercise, when you still occasionally ask, “what day is it?”.
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Well that is my excuse for not paying enough attention to what was floating around social media claiming to be a fact.
I read – more than once – that MTV, the music video channel, HUGE in the 80s, had closed down on New Year’s Eve. Finished. Gone. Once a cool, cultural cornerstone with funkier presenters than I could ever hope to be, had shuffled off to join Woolworths and the Test Card Girl, resurfacing from now on, only in pub quiz questions.
Only when I dug a little deeper did I find a very different story. MTV itself had not vanished at all. They had just closed several UK and Ireland spin-off channels which stopped broadcasting after December 31st, 2025 and that is where the rumours and misinformation came from.
Still, the scare story gave me a nudge down musical memory lane, a lane that leads directly to the North East. I fell deep into a rabbit hole of multiple local connections to MTV and here are some of my favourites.
One of the most self-referential MTV moments is, of course, intrinsically linked to the North East.
‘Money for Nothing’, Dire Straits’ biggest hit, was written by Mark Knopfler with Sting. You don’t have to ask Alexa to play it to hear Sting, even higher pitched than usual, chanting the haunting refrain, “I want my MTV” – sung to the same melody as Don’t Stand So Close To Me.
The video itself was groundbreaking: it opens with chunky, computer-animated figures that look like rejects from Minecraft, the game kids play today. When MTV Europe launched on August 1, 1987, ‘Money For Nothing’ was the first video they played.
I bet a young Geordie called Gordon from Wallsend and a Glasgow-born Gosforth guitar nut named Mark, never dreamed they would one day help launch a continent-wide TV network with a cracking song they co-wrote.
Of course, competition arrived, countless other music video channels were spawned so MTV diversified, introduced a raft of loud, brash reality shows, and this of course brings us to… Geordie Shore!
For the uninitiated, this series followed a group of young, very tanned, very good looking, attention seeking Tynesiders, sharing a house, going clubbing and generally doing what tanned, good looking, attention seeking Tynesiders do – debauchery might be the word??
I don’t really know as I never watched it (it wasn’t aimed at me) but some Newcastle MPs were so outraged they complained about it in parliament.
Others have argued it brought in tourism to the North East (who doesn’t like watching a bit of wildlife) and at its peak, the viewing figures were through the roof.
One of the breakout stars, Vicky Pattison went on to win ‘I’m A Celebrity’, presents Loose Women and recently danced her heels off in Strictly. She has also made a couple of interesting documentaries and has a very caring side; I met her in her capacity as trustee for the Newcastle Dog and Cat Shelter.
But my favourite connection takes us right back to the very beginning of MTV history and I think it is a musician everyone in the North East can be very proud of.
The very first video played on MTV, in 1981, was Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles – produced by Trevor Horn from Hetton-le-Hole.
How about that, a Grammy award winner from County Durham helping to launch a channel that would change pop culture for better (and sometimes worse) for, well who knows how long?
Wherever you might go around the world you’ll nearly always bump into someone wearing a Newcastle or Sunderland shirt; in the same way, watch any music video channel and it won’t be long before you find a North East link.
From Jimmy Nail’s unlikely MTV-era chart-topper, through Bryan Ferry’s video-age elegance, to Cheryl’s omnipresence on MTV UK in the 2000s, the North East has been consistently woven into the fabric of music television from the very beginning.
FACTS & FOOTNOTES
• MTV launched in the US on August 1, 1981 and originally broadcast music videos 24 hours a day.
• Beyoncé has won more MTV Video Music Awards than any other artist in history.
• Trevor Horn went on to become one of the most successful producers in pop history, working with Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys, Yes and Seal.
• Davina McCall, Donna Air, Cat Deeley and Sara Cox were all MTV presenters
Alfie Joey will be hosting Chuf’s All Hearts Games Night on February 6 at Revolution de Cuba for The Children’s Heart Unit Fund. Contact the charity for details.
