You’ll never look at music the same way again.

MTV: The Making of a Revolution, written by Tom McGrath

By the mid-1990s, a teenager who’d had his mind blown by the music video visual feast was old enough to be a damn good writer and reporter, so Scranton’s Tom McGrath (now the Executive Editor of Philadephia Magazine) decided to literally write the book. MTV: The Making of a Revolution told the whole story (it’s sadly now out of print, maybe since MTV: Music Television has become MTV) behind and in front of the camera.

As I remember, Mr. McGrath’s reporting was fairly complete and, all in all, accurate, in and of itself often a rarity in media reporting. He made me and the work my teams did look good, which made my mother and father very happy. Me too.

Click here for more of my posts about MTV.

Click here for my posts about MTV.

On May 5, 1980 I lucked into my first job in television —cable television— at Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company (WASEC). Within 30 days programming head Bob Pittman started putting together the team to launch ‘The Music Channel’ (the working name for what eventually became MTV) and had me add to my existing duties as the head of promotion for The Movie Channel and work on music television too.

We had an incredible team to develop the image and vocabulary for the network. Against all odds, the unique logo, network IDs, and promos set the look and sound for the media over the next 20 years. Eventually, my departments included promotion, studio production, programming, advertising, and creative services.

By 1983 the entrepreneurial genes were straining so my longtime creative partner, writer/producer Alan Goodman, and I left the company to form a consulting/advertising/production agency.

Our first client? MTV Networks, until 1992.

Click here for my posts about MTV.

In my MTV office, 1133 Avenue of the Americas, NYC, 1981

“We look before you buy!”

A little known fact about MTV Networks (originally called Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, a second little known fact) was that its original strategy called for the eventual launch of ten networks. They thought about games and sports, in addition to music, movies, and kids; their fourth one was to be shopping. As the company’s creative director, my team went to work in the Spring of 1982.

Before Home Shopping Network there was to be ShopAmerica, the world’s first all shoppping TV channel. After all, the half owner of the company was American Express; that’s why they invested in cable television, after all.

There are a lot of network development levels that are too boring to go into (and the minute HSN launched it was clear how our strategy would have failed), but since I’ve always loved working on logos and branding I hung onto our attempts for ShopAmerica. George Lois and my mentor, Dale Pon, art directed for their agency LPG/Pon.

“Mee, mee, me, meeee!”

More about MTV Networks Online

The ME Tapes: Sonicnet.com campaign compilation, 2000 (from VHS)

MTV got Sonicnet in the middle of another transaction they thought would be more important. But as the internet heated up in the business world’s consciousness, Sonicnet.com became something they thought to pay attention to. Which meant that, as president of MTV Networks Online, I was trying to help make the thing successful.

Dwight Yoakam, Sting, Kelis

Sonicnet from fredseibert on Vimeo.

MTV had also acquired a then-unique personalized radio application. Coupled with Sonicnet, we decided an ad campaign would supercharge the site, something large media folks like us thought was necessary. It wasn’t.

Sisqo, kd lang, Moby, Johnny Resnick, Don Henley, Beenie Man, Sheryl Crow

Sonicnet from fredseibert on Vimeo.

Over a few objections, I hired my brilliant, challenging mentor Dale Pon to create our campaign. Dale had done our the iconic “I Want My MTV” for me in the early 1980s and constantly proved himself to be the most creative and effective media ad man in America. The stunningly talented director Tim Newman was already on my online staff (after turning his back on a career that included some of the greatest music videos of all time), so he was tapped to shoot the spots.

Gang Starr, SheDaisy, Blink 182, Moby, Charlotte Church, Ruff Ryders, Eve, Sting

Sonicnet from fredseibert on Vimeo.

You can see for yourself that Dale knew how conceive big ideas to bring out the best from stars, and, he really knew how to reach for the stars (like Isaac Hayes, James Brown, Joshua Bell, Jewel, Pat Metheny, Sheryl Crow, Beenie Man, Gang Starr, Faith Hill, Lindsey Buckingham, Don Henley, Al Jarreau, Alice Cooper, Blink 182, Kenny Wayne Shephard, Bon Jovi, Buck Cherry, Charlotte Church, Christina Acquilera, Dwight Yoakam, The Ruff Ryders, Eve, Johnny Resnick (The Goo Goo Dolls), kd lang, Buck Cherry, Kelis, Lindsey Buckingham, Melissa Etheridge, Moby, Seal, Sisqo, Static X, SheDaisy, Hillary Hahn, Charlotte Church, Yo Yo Ma, and Sting.)

James Brown, Christina Acquilera, Sting, Yo Yo Ma, Dwight Yoakam, Isaac Hayes, Sheryl Crow, Blink 182

Sonicnet from fredseibert on Vimeo.

This campaign, like every other one I’d worked on with Dale over the decades, was a hoot. One of the best things to come out of my one year in the corporate internets.

Into the new media. Again.

More about MTV Networks Online

James Brown, Christina Acquilera, Sting, Yo Yo Ma, Dwight Yoakam

Sonicnet.com 17 from fredseibert on Vimeo.

At the time, it seemed like a horrible mistake. And like mistakes sometimes can, it led to a new, uncharted, wonderful life.

It was the beginning of the peaking of “the internet” 1.0, which, honestly, I wanted nothing to do with “the internet.” I liked email, I liked Amazon.com. But I also liked the career I had staked out producing cartoons and media consulting. I was 48 years old, gotten married again, had a couple of kids. And felt like I’d finally settled into to doing something pretty well. I didn’t really want to start over with something new, no matter how exciting. Really.

However, to make a long story short, I succumbed. In 1999, after seven years in Los Angeles, my family and I moved to New York, and I became the president of MTV Networks Online, which included MTV.com and Nick.com. Joining a constantly innovating media as part of an established media company —no matter how fresh they may have been back in the day— was exactly the wrong way to go. And “go” I did. Within a year I was back to producing and consulting. But, I’d never be the same again —the whole world wouldn’t be— and, at least I got a head start on all of my old media pals.

But, great things came out of the experience. For instance, the campaign for MTV’s website Sonicnet.com (which I’ll write about elsewhere). I got some new friendships, especially my partnership with engineer/thinker Emil Rensing (which eventually led to us founding Next New Networks). Most importantly, I gained a new perspective on everything media, right into the belly of the beast of the new I tried to avoid. My innate curiosity paid off once again.

Not Fred Allen.

Alan Goodman & me. Photography by Elena Seibert,  hand coloring by Candy Kugel, 1983

Alan Goodman and I met at WKCR-FM, our college radio station, in 1970; we’ve been the greatest of friends and collaborators ever since. We tagged team each other on personal work projects for the next 10 years, and Alan was the person I turned to for guidance the night I made the decision to turn away from record production and move into cable TV. Six months later Alan joined me at MTV Networks.

For three years we helped turn the television world upside down and then we’d had enough. In April 1983 we booked the corporate life and set up Fred/Alan, Inc. (figuring all of our clients would have to be old to get the joke). At the start we thought the company would produce TV shows and movies; in fact the precipitating event that caused us to quit our jobs was a deal to make a music video show for The Playboy Channel.

The First TV Branding Company
But the thing that capapulted Fred/Alan was what turned out to be our innovative network branding work for MTV; no one had really thought about television the same way before. In quick succession we were able to develop and launch all the key MTV networks (Nickelodeon, VH-1: Video Hits One, HA! The TV Comedy Network, Comedy Central); and we virtually invented Nick-at-Nite, the very first oldies network). Most successfully, Fred/Alan was able to take Nickelodeon from worst to first in the ratings within six months and established their brand around the world (Alan and I have separately maintained relationships with Nick ever since).

Fred/Alan morphed into a full service advertising agency, adding media buying, print production, and account management to our creative and strategic capabilities. It was the first agency to brand itself as a demographically specialized company.

In 1989 we moved back into television series, setting up Chauncey Street Productions with our old friend Albie Hecht, and went on to produce hundreds of TV episodes for A&E, AMC, CBS, Comedy Central/HA!, MTV, Nickelodeon, and others.

But after a while we couldn’t take it anymore. Our branding approaches had become commodified as our more motivated former employees, the clients we had trained, and every graphic design firm all became media branding experts. We were turning down lucrative offers to buy the company since we knew it would require years more of servitude.

After many years together, Alan married my sister Elena in early 1992, and in February we announced the closing of Fred/Alan. Albie bought Chauncey Street, and Alan went on to become a successful writer/producer.

In June 1992, I became the president of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons.

(For more about Fred/Alan, check out The Fred/Alan Archive, 1983-1992.)

Photography by Elena Seibert