Music videos originated in the 1920s with musical short films shown in movie theaters. Individual artists also began creating short films for their songs in the 1960s. Tony Bennett is believed to have created the first music video in 1965. The launch of MTV in 1981 as the first 24-hour music video channel greatly expanded the popularity of the format. Technology has since allowed higher production quality videos and viewing on new platforms like smartphones and YouTube, expanding the audience from older moviegoers to include younger viewers.

2. THE HISTORY OF MUSIC VIDEOS
• When talkies (a motion picture with synchronized sound) were produced in 1926, it was very popular to
create musical short films. These would include bands, vocalists and dancers. Live action musical shorts
would be distributed to movie theatres for people to watch like movies.
• Musicians such as Bessie Smith and Louis Jordan made short films for a few of their songs but weren’t
necessarily in relation to the lyrics.
• Tony Bennett is believed to have created the first music video for the recording of his song “Stranger in
Paradise” in 1965 in which filming took place in Serpentine in Hyde Park, London. It aired on UK and US
television stations.
• On August 1st, 1981 MTV was launched which was the first 24-hour video music-channel. The first music
video played was ironically “Video Killed The Radio Star” by The Buggles.
• Since then, music videos of all genres and styles are made to help artists gain more publicity and
following. The launch of YouTube in 2005 made this platform possible. Over the years, Taylor Swift,
Kendrick Lamar, and Katy Perry are among the many influential artists who are known for their powerful,
and somewhat controversial music videos, sparking lots of media coverage.

3. ORIGINAL PRIMARY AUDIENCE
The original primary audience for music videos
was generally the middle to upper class as
although it was a somewhat a luxury to visit the
cinema, it wasn’t that expensive so various
people, mainly over 25s would visit the cinema
to watch music videos. One of the most popular
music videos was Michael Jackson’s Thriller
which is 14 minutes long and was one of the first
music videos to be of the horror genre.

4. HOW HAS TECHNOLOGY IMPACTED ON THE
FORM AND AUDIENCE
With the advancements of technology, better cameras have been developed enabling higher quality videos as
well as better visual effects which would appeal a more sophisticated audience.
Also, as the development of smartphones has come around in the noughties, viewing platforms have changed
so that people don’t have to watch them at the cinema anymore, nor on the TV, but can instead watch them on
their smartphones via apps such as YouTube.
Because of this, the audience has changed as children as young as 6 are accessible to smartphones and
YouTube so they are able to follow their favourite artists.