It’s hard to believe, but in an age before The Hills, My Super Sweet 16, and even Cribs,MTV used to show nothing but music videos. Nearly three decades on andthe iconic channel has changed significantly––but its revolutionaryimpact cannot be underestimated. That making a video to accompany a song is now firmly entrenched in our music-culture psychedemonstrates the remarkable prescience of the channel’s originalapproach. On August 1, 1981, when MTV launched, there weren’t manyvideos to play—five of the first 61 shown were the work of RodStewart—and there was a heavy reliance on crude promotional materialand concert clips. The concept was so fresh that technology wasstruggling to catch up, and the channel’s presenters––“VJs”––initiallyhad to insert videos themselves via a player that would produce a fewseconds of blank screen before flickering to life. But soon magazineswere routinely referring to children of the 80s as the “MTVgeneration.” The advent of the MTV Video Music Awards in 1984—astar-studded annual event—helped to elevate the musicvideo to the status of art form, a concept later developed by geniuspromo-directors such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and ChrisCunningham. By the 90s the channel was moving away from videos andtowards original programming, as well as diversifying with new stationssuch as MTV UK & Ireland, MTV Classic and VH1. The Unplugged series briefly became a bellwether for folksy early-decade tastefulness, while the charmingly postmodern Beavis and Buttheadshowed a pair of vacant Gen X-ers mindlessly snickering at videos. Butthe channel was still capable of breaking pop stars on the back of oneoutstanding video, with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera takingthe fast track trodden by Madonna and Cindy Lauper. Given theincreasing saturation of the market, it’s not surprising that inthe 00s the station began cannily working to capture as big a chunk ofthe tween to mid-20s demographic as possible via programs likeswearathon The Osbournes and the frat-ready Jackass and Punk’d.Perhaps this weekend MTV will mark its birthday by dusting down one of those Rod Stewart videos fromlaunch day? We've gone for one of the channel's debut promos (converted from Betamax), originally aired in the first five minutes of its first broadcast.