Affirmative Action
on the Playlist?

An Analysis of the Representation of African-Americans on MTV

by

Christoph Koch

Table of contents:

1. Introduction

2. The History of MTV

3. MTV as a Powerful Gatekeeper

4. The Racism Debate of the 80s

5. Analysis of MTV′s playlist from 1989 to 1999
5.1 Methods
5.2 Results Hypothesis 1
5.3 Results Hypothesis 2
5.4 Results Hypothesis 3

6. Conclusion and Questions for Future Research

Bibliography

1. Introduction

MTV - an "all encompassing mediator of popular culture" (Goodwin, 1992) or as the Washington Post once put it "perhaps the most influential single cultural product of the [eighties]" (McGrath 1996, p. 8). A trademark that has become a synonym for modern television, fast moving pictures and even a certain lifestyle. ′MTV generation′, ′MTV-like′, ′I want my MTV′ etc. But MTV is more than entertainment for teenagers and music with colorful pictures around it - It is not only the world′s fastest growing network but also a powerful gatekeeper. Whoever makes it onto the playlist of the network can expect their CD sales to skyrocket and his concerts to be sold out. But the question is, is MTV giving everybody the same chance?

This research paper deals with the question of how black people are represented in the music programming of MTV. Although MTV today features more game, quiz and celebrity shows and less music videos than it did in the 1980s, it can still be considered ′Music Television′ and has 50 different titles in rotation each week.

To find out more about the representation of African-Americans on MTV, the following hypotheses will be tested:

H1: The percentage of black artists on MTV′s playlist has increased significantly over the last decade with a particular strong increase in the middle of the 1990s.

H2: The percentage of other minorities (like Asians, Hispanics, etc.) in contrast has not increased over the last 10 years.

H3: The percentage of black artists on MTV′s playlist is higher in February (Black History Month) than in another random month.

In the first chapters, however, MTV′s history will be briefly examined as well as its role as a strong gatekeeper in the music industry. Additionally, the big controversy that took place in the early years of MTV, when several black artists protested the network′s "impenetrable racial barrier" (Idowu 1999, p. 41) will be talked about.

There is a satisfying amount of literature about MTV, unfortunately most of it is quite old and only a small amount of it deals with the issue of race within MTV′s programming (and if it does, it usually only deals with the famous dispute of the 80s and not the status quo). In the last chapter not only a conclusion but also suggestions for future research about this and related topics will be presented.

2. The History of MTV

MTV got on the air exactly at midnight on August 1st, 1981. The first video that was aired was ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by The Buggles and of course that choice wasn’t unintentional. The concept of a 24-hour channel dedicated only to music videos was a revolutionary one, considering that there weren’t too many music videos around at that point of time. Only few (mostly British) bands had discovered this medium as an art form and produced small film clips to their songs.

Also came the arrival of MTV in an era shortly after the ‘great depression’ in the music industry in 1979 – although nobody would have thought that it would prove itself as one of the remedies against it (Denisoff 1989, p. 1; 54).

Most insiders, however, see January 1983 as the ‘real’ launch of MTV, because it was then that MTV got into the cable markets of Manhattan and Los Angeles¹. These markets were very important, because now many potential advertisers could actually see the network and MTV was finally present in the two big media centers of North America and received much more attention nationwide (Grossberg 1993, p. 51). Another indicator of a new era for MTV is the fact that Billboard – the most important magazine of the recording industry - started printing MTV’s video clip rotations at that time (Denisoff 1989, p. 96).

[...]

1 Getting into these markets was mostly an achievement of the heavy ‘I want my MTV’ campaign, which was launched to convince cable operators to carry MTV and which featured artists such as John Cougar Mellencamp, Sting, Pat Benatar and others (Denisoff 1989, p. 82; 95)