We got cable pretty early on (early 80's, I was barely in high school). I remember that our first HBO "cable guide" had JAWS on the cover. I also remember MTV, and my first remembrance of it was when J. Geils Band's "Love Stinks" aired, and my mom said how terrible of a message that was.

(BTW - I was watching other, similar music on TV then -- Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and full live concerts on UHF (Billy Squier, Quarterflash, and others))

A few years later, in college, I remember they aired many (24? 48?) hours of back-to-back USER-SUBMITTED versions of the Madonna video "Papa Don't Preach" "True Blue" which I watched quite a bit of. THAT was very cutting-edge, not just for the time, but of all-time! Video cameras weren't all THAT common yet, but they looked great and were entertaining.

Around the same time I remember seeing The Monkees series rerun 24/7 -- was that MTV? Awesome, regardless.

Anyway, MTV should rename itself at this point. They have nothing whatsoever to do with M(usic) anymore. But I'll give them one thing - they practically invented the modern version of "Reality TV" (The Real World), for better or worse....