MTV's First VJs Tell All: A Chat With Nina Blackwood And Mark Goodman
Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll – that pretty well sums up the early years at MTV, at least according to some of the station’s earliest on-air personalities. Two of the station’s original VJs -- Mark Goodman and Nina Blackwood (respectively "the hunk" and "the video vixen," according to each other) -- talk about the new oral history, VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave.
Nina Blackwood, on what she expected going into her role as a VJ:
When I went to MTV, that was what I was expecting -- to be a disc jockey, only on camera. I envisioned it to be like a really, really cool FM station, only on TV. I didn't go there wanting to be 'Miss TV Star' at all. I really thought that video music was going to catch on. I thought combining two of America's favorite pastimes, music and TV, would probably work.
Mark Goodman, on how he felt about MTV's reluctance to play music by black artists:
I don't think that they were racist, I don't think it was 'they're black people, we're not going to play them.' But, the error in the logic happened when J.J. [Jackson] pointed out to me, we're playing Culture Club and Spandau Ballet, and all these white bands that are basically singing R&B music. Why don't we play people who are black singing R&B music?
Nina Blackwood, on whether she and Martha Quinn were treated differently as female VJs:
I personally didn't ever feel that way. I didn't feel it was a boy's club as far as the work went, that stuff was given to Mark or J.J. or Alan because they were a guy. But, of course, the nature of rock and rollers are to try and pick up girls, no matter who the girls are. So in that regard, it was just kind of more of the same.
Mark Goodman, on whether MTV would have continued playing music videos had the original VJs stayed on:
Whether the five of us stayed or didn't stay, MTV made a decision in terms of their future, and that was: We will not grow old with our audience. This is what our demo is. This is what we will do to superserve them.... They probably would have gone in the same direction, and maybe we would have been behind the scenes, or maybe we would have been in the news department, or more than likely we would have been out.
