It is difficult to overestimate the effect that MTV has had on the development of the music industry. When the channel was launched in the early eighties, one of the primary sources for music was radio. These two platforms provide a profoundly different experience for their audience and require, to a degree, different approaches from the music creators. Potentially, in the specificity of the medium lies the reason for the heyday of pop music prompted by MTV.
The nature of MTV gave rise to music videos, and even more so, it shifted further the focus from audio characteristics to the visual ones of a musical performance. This innovation led to the fusion between music and television: before MTV, there were no video clips of high production value, and there was no music video as a separate genre. Secondly, the emergence of MTV made famous artists like Duran Duran, Michael Jackson, and Madonna. By accentuating the visual aspect of music, the channel gave a chance to artists who heavily relied on the notion of performance. It is telling that the majority of pop music was created with the help of MTV at that time. Moreover, the channel helped more European artists to enter the North American music industry: for instance, British New Wave gained popularity due to its often rotation on MTV. Bands like Tears for Fears, Depeche Mode, and Flock of Seagulls to a degree owe their popularity in the USA to the channel.
In this way, the extent to which MTV revolutionized the music industry on the whole and shaped the pop music industry has its repercussions in today’s tastes and tendencies in the domain. The increase of importance of visual components in music, the introduction of video clips, and the invasion of British bands in North American music spaces are all due to MTV. Although the rivalry in the sphere increases and competitors such as YouTube gain more magnitude, MTV remains a cornerstone in the music industry.