--- title: MTV 1981-1992 description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103662/mtv-1981-1992/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-12T14:50:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-02T23:01:32.026Z og:title: MTV 1981-1992 og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:url: https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103662/mtv-1981-1992/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4503c527bb43c86/69869f2be8524b4e0f604418/t100_tv_mtv_youtube1.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: MTV 1981-1992 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: MTV 1981-1992 twitter:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4503c527bb43c86/69869f2be8524b4e0f604418/t100_tv_mtv_youtube1.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 12, 2014 # _MTV 1981-1992_ by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff  Everett In a way, a list of the 100 best TV shows misses the point of how people watch TV in the cable era: they watch networks—HGTV, ESPN, Nickelodeon—as much as they do shows. MTV, in the pre-_Real World_ era, was the first network to teach viewers to watch this way, when the moon man planted its flag and killed the radio star in 1981\. Quick-cut and compressed—video in concentrate form—music videos were not just a new way of selling music: they changed TV series (the pitch for _Miami Vice_ was simply, “MTV cops”) and influenced movies (graduating directors like Spike Jonze, David Fincher and Michel Gondry). The best clips from MTV’s all-video ’80s heyday—from Michael Jackson to Talking Heads—captured the power of the music, rather than replacing it. MTV taught us to see with our ears and listen with our eyes. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103662/mtv-1981-1992/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103662/mtv-1981-1992/"},"headline":"MTV 1981-1992","datePublished":"2014-08-12T14:50:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:01:32.026Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103662/mtv-1981-1992/","keywords":["Music","MTV"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4503c527bb43c86/69869f2be8524b4e0f604418/t100_tv_mtv_youtube1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4503c527bb43c86/69869f2be8524b4e0f604418/t100_tv_mtv_youtube1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/all-time-100-tv-shows/3103662/mtv-1981-1992/","name":"MTV 1981-1992"}}]}] ```