Unsung is a feature in which I take a look at a pop culture phenomenon (be it music, TV, literary, whatever) that has been forgotten or underappreciated. In this installment, I look at V66, the short-lived Boston-based music video channel from the mid-1980s.
In this age of on-demand streaming of pretty much anything you want, it's interesting to look back on how different things were for entertainment options when I was a kid. You were pretty much at the whim of radio and TV programmers in terms of when and what you could see; if you missed the episode of Happy Days that featured Robin Williams as Mork from Ork (which originally aired in February 1978), you had to wait for summer reruns to see it again. There were no DVRs or on-demand options, or even VCRs (at least nobody I knew had one then) to record the episode.
Artists had been making music videos since the 1960s, but I didn't really become aware of them until 1979, when a Toronto station called CITY-TV began airing a show called The New Music. In addition to running interviews with the hottest musicians of the day and concert footage, the show would air music videos. I remember seeing "Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie, "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by the Police, "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads and "One Step Beyond" by Madness, among many others. This coincided with the beginning of my lifelong obsession with music, so seeing videos was a cool new way to enjoy it.
I remember hearing about the launch of MTV in the U.S. in August 1981; a few months later, we would move to Richland, Washington, where my dad had taken a job. The cable system there, like many in the country, hadn't picked up MTV yet, so it was just a concept at that point. But there were other ways to see videos: USA Network's Night Flight was a four-hour show that featured full-length and short films, concerts and rock videos, and HBO had a show called Video Jukebox.
A few years later, we moved to Kingston, New Hampshire, where the cable system again didn't have MTV available. NBC launched Friday Night Videos at 12:30 a.m. Saturday morning (right after Late Night with David Letterman); I would try and stay up and watch it up but would often fall asleep part way through because it was so late. One time, I was fading in and out while watching Men Without Hats' "The Safety Dance," which led to some really strange dreams. And the Boston CBS affiliate had a show called Hot Hit Video that would air in the afternoons after school. Sometimes I would go with my friend Jeremy to his girlfriend's house in a neighboring town where they got MTV and watch videos for hours.
During my senior year of high school (1984-85), I discovered a new video channel called V66. It wasn't on our cable system, but you could pick it up with an antenna on the UHF band (if you cut the cord from cable now, you can still pick up UHF stations with a digital antenna). We had one TV that wasn't on cable and one day I was watching and flipping stations and came across channel 66, which was playing "How Soon is Now?" by the Smiths; I was blown away by the song, but also the fact that this station existed.
WVJV-TV (aka V66) went on the air almost exactly 40 years ago, on February 12. Launched by Boston-area radio veterans John Garabedian and Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsburg, V66 followed the same format as MTV, with video jockeys introducing music videos and concerts and hosting events in the Boston area. The station played a wide variety of music, from rock to pop to hip hop, mixing in local unknown acts with major artists. Local artists featured included Til Tuesday, Del Fuegos, Extreme and the Fools. With the New England Patriots getting ready to take on the Chicago Bears in the 1986 Super Bowl, V66 even produced an answer video to the Bears' popular "Super Bowl Shuffle" called "New England, the Patriots and We." It's as hilariously cringy as it sounds (see below), and the Pats ended up getting demolished by the Bears.
In July 1985, V66 aired the big Live Aid benefit concerts (in addition to ABC). Eventually in an attempt to increase ratings, the station added news shows, sports highlights, comedies and syndicated programs. Ratings were measured by 30- and 60-minute blocks; it was difficult to maintain steady ratings when a viewer might change the channel if they didn't like a particular song that was airing. (Interestingly enough, MTV came to the same realization a few years later and began airing non-music-based programming like the game show Remote Control and later reality shows like The Real World and Road Rules. MTV still exists, but you won't find music videos anymore, just endless viewings of tedious "reality" shows.)
I didn't watch V66 a whole lot because the signal was so fuzzy; I lived in the boonies so V66 would kind of come and go. I would check in every so often and watch it for a while before it got too staticky. When I went to college in the fall of 1985, I didn't have a TV in my room anymore (we just had a bit TV in the dorm lounge; it was a different time, kids), so I wasn't able to watch V66 anymore. And then when I came home for the holidays that December, the local cable system had finally added MTV, so I watched that whenever I could.
V66 didn't stick around for very long. Garabedian was hoping it would become a national By the summer of 1986, the station was sold to the Home Shopping Network; it went off the air on my 19th birthday, September 21, 1986. The station now broadcasts the Spanish-language network Univision to the Boston area.
Although it wasn't around very long, V66 made a strong impression on music fans in the Boston area. Local filmmaker Eric Green watched the channel as a young child and in 2008, began working on a documentary about V66, interviewing former staff and viewers. The documentary, Life on the V: The Story of V66, came out in 2014. It's been out on DVD since 2015 and is screening at the Somerville Theatre on February 27 as part of the theatre's February offerings. It's a fun look at an interesting blip in the Boston media landscape. I interviewed Green about Life on the V for my podcast in 2012 while he was making the film (listen to parts 1 and 2) and again in 2015 after it was released (listen here).
Fast forward 40 years and music videos are still made, but they're nowhere near as influential as they were in the '80s and '90s. You can find them on YouTube whenever you want, but you're hard-pressed to find then on TV anymore. Certainly not on MTV. But for a short time in the mid-80s in Boston, you could get your video fix on V66. And that wasn't a bad thing at all.
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