MTV 1st Broadcast August 1st 1981. You're Never Look at Music The Same Way Again. It was just after midnight in the early morning hours of August 1, 1981, that the fledgling Music Television network flickered to life. “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll” were the words that preceded on opening montage featuring a chunky guitar riff playing over the familiar image of an American astronaut planting an unfamiliar flag on the surface of the moon—a flag emblazoned with a big, block capital “M” and t