Breaking the Colour Barrier

In the first few years MTV was on the air there were very few black artists shown on the channel and the first non- white act to play on MTV were “The Specials” a white and black integrated band of musicians and vocalists. Apart from the specials many other black artist’s videos were rejected by MTV as they did not fit the strict Rock format of the channel at that time.

Before 1983 Michael Jackson also struggled to get shown on the channel. To break this colour barrier the president of CBS Records, at the time Walter Yetnikoff, spoke out against MTV and threatened to take away MTV’s rights to play any record from the CBS label. After this Michael Jacksons “Billie Jean” began to play regularly on the channel amongst other black artists.