What was the point of music videos before MTV?

So like what? The evening news would have a special news bulletin and play some Kiss video?

1) Many local US television channels had late night programs which featured them.

2) HBO and other fledgling cable channels used them as "time fillers" - when a
105 minute movie that began at noon ended at 1:45, they might not show a
new movie until 2, and so would show videos between the two.

3) There were also many syndicated programs that showed them, both on early cable (like "Night Flights") and local late-night television.

4) There was a sort of market for these on European and Japanese television as
filler material long before MTV.

5) I remember seeing videos (in Europe) at the movies when I was little,
during intermissions and before the films started.

6) There used to be "video jukeboxes" in Europe in the 60s - I can't remember
what they were called (before my time), but they weren't videos as such, but
still made use of similar promotional film footage.

7) They used to show them in discotheques (not "disco" ones necessarily, but places people went dancing even to rock and roll or whatever.)

8) Probably lots of other things too.

I agree the other answer was pretty self-righteous, but "comic guys" need something to do, don't forget!

http://scopitone.tripod.com/

When I was a little less than 10 years old, Kasey Kasem's top 10 countdown on TV was THE vehicle for videos in my area. I always pressumed that Friday Night Videos was a response to Kasem, and MTV collectively.

Who plays videos now?

That makes sense. I've been under the impression for many years - I don't remember where I got this idea, perhaps from that movie "The Compleat Beatles" or something - that "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were the first two promo videos ever made for any band (meaning that they weren't part of a movie or TV show, and they weren't simply taken from performance footage) which would have been only a few months after their last concert.

Any idea where either of these might have been shown for the first time, or where to obtain a good quality copy of either? It's kind of strange, considering the obsessive tendancies that Beatles fans can possess, that the videos for these and the "Hey Jude" and "Revolution" videos have never been issued on DVD or anything.

i remember this happening here in australia well in to the mid-90s... but i think they just always shoved "Wonderwall" in between the last of the kids shows and the 6 o'clock newz.

Sorry to be tedious, but they made promo videos for Rain and other '65 tracks. Rain is in fact one of the only places you can see paul's chupped tooth from his motorbike accident that was fuel for the 'Paul is Dead' urban legend.

[[[[Any idea where either of these might have been shown for the first time, or where to obtain a good quality copy of either?]]]]

The Anthology DVD's are packed with many of these.

Good to know. ("Rain" was 1966 btw.) I've never seen the anthology DVDs, but I always assumed they included only clips of the videos with the Beatles giving commentary over them (since that's what was on the TV special - yes I know the special was significantly shorter in length than the DVDs, but that was just my assumption anyway).

Thank you! I watch this often and always howl that dude didn't bother getting his tooth fixed. Never made the connection with the bike accident.

ask whoever all about that?

ask whoever all about that?

also in the paleolithic era they had "soundies"--basically music videos, or short musical films with little or no narrative content--that played before films. they also showed these things on tv, sometimes.

also i sort of remember "music videos" being stuck on videotapes (sometimes concert videos, sometimes just random videos) as "bonuses" in the vhs-or-beta era.

although there weren't all that many music videos in the early days of mtv, so t here was a lot of repetition; also mtv wasn't on 24 hours at first.

now, of course, there's no repetition at all. they'll just play the 50 cent video once and be done with it since there's so much other important music to get to.

xpost - what was the point of recorded songs before the radio

It just seems so stupid, looking at any of these today.