Cable Music Channel


The Cable Music Channel was a short-lived American basic cable channel that was owned by the Turner Broadcasting System. The all-music video channel was created by Ted Turner and launched in 1984, providing the first national competition to MTV. Turner later stated that the channel existed at the behest of the cable industry as a defense mechanism against MTV's unsuccessful attempts to increase the fees that cable providers paid to carry the channel by twofold; Turner offered the channel without any carriage fees.

Launch

The idea of music on television was nothing new for Ted Turner. In 1970, Turner's Atlanta, Georgia independent station WTCG-TV, aired an all-music program called The Now Explosion at night and on weekends, airing up to 28 hours a week. In 1983, Turner's superstation, which was known as WTBS at that point, launched a late night weekend music video block called Night Tracks. The success of Night Tracks led Turner to take on MTV with the Cable Music Channel.
CMC launched at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time on October 26, 1984 with network president Robert Wussler at a podium in CMC's studios in Los Angeles introducing the network; "The Star Spangled Banner" was then played. Afterwards, Wussler introduced CMC Vice-President and General Manager Scott Sassa to the podium. Sassa quickly greeted the crowd and then introduced 13th District Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson to the podium. Stevenson presented Ted Turner a proclamation from the City of Los Angeles signed by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and Stevenson declaring October 26, 1984 as "Cable Music Channel Day." Turner gave a brief speech that the network is "gonna play a wide arrangement of music. We're gonna stay away from excessively violent or degrading clips towards women that MTV is so fond of running." Afterwards he pushed a big red button on the wall behind him and exclaimed a defiant "Take that, MTV!", the channel kicked off with CMC VJs Jeff Gonzer and Raechel Donahue introducing the Randy Newman music video "I Love L.A.".

CMC vs. MTV

MTV focused on album-oriented rock and the VJ segments were pre-recorded; CMC, however, focused on contemporary hit music and broadcast live VJ segments. CMC also provided news, sports and weather reports. Another difference between Cable Music Channel and its main competitor was that MTV's video jockeys were seen on-air; whereas CMC's video jockeys were just heard via voiceover. MTV's studios and offices were based in a New York apartment; while CMC's studios were located at The Production Group and offices were located in a Los Angeles house just down the street.
CMC promoted itself as avoiding sexually and violently explicit music videos to capitalize on the perception that MTV actually played those types of videos. In fact, MTV had strict guidelines about the types of behavior that could be shown in videos and frequently returned clips to record labels for re-editing.

As a money-losing venture

It quickly became clear that CMC was losing money fast, due to an inability to reach agreements with cable providers ) or secure the rights to play top videos. Despite an estimated audience of 2.5 million, on November 29, 1984, Turner decided to sell the assets of Cable Music Channel to MTV's parent company Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment for $1 million, with Warner-Amex agreeing to buy $500,000 worth of advertising for MTV on Turner's other channels. WASEC used the channel to help form a new adult contemporary-focused sister network to MTV, VH1, which launched just over a month later on January 1, 1985.

Shutdown

Cable Music Channel officially shut down just before midnight Eastern Time on November 30, 1984; the last chyroned video aired was "Take Me to Heart" by Quarterflash, followed by a sign-off listing the entire crew of CMC interspersed through the video that first launched the network one month earlier, "I Love L.A." by Randy Newman. As the screen faded to black, CMC VJ Raechel Donahue said, "Well, it's not really goodbye you know darlings. We'll always be there somewhere so watch this space. Say goodbye y'all now." A male voice replied, "Goodbye y'all." Three seconds later, the satellite up-link was pulled off.
CMC's five-week run made it one of the shortest-lived channels in American cable television history. The network's background graphics were recycled for use on Night Tracks for five years after CMC's demise.