Video Killed the Radio Star - Definition and Overview

"Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song written by the Buggles, which was later made into a music video. It is noteworthy because it was the first video shown on MTV, when the channel debuted on August 1, 1981 (at 12:00 AM). Because there were few videos to choose from, this one seemed the logical choice for the fledgling network.

Written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley, the song reached number one in the UK charts in 1979. It appears on the album The Age of Plastic.

The phrase came to light again in 1983, when Duran Duran caused a minor uproar by releasing the "Union of the Snake" video (the first single from the Seven and the Ragged Tiger album) to MTV a week before releasing the single to radio. Radio stations feared this might become the wave of the future, with fans tuning into MTV for new music and ignoring radio.

The song was covered by the Presidents of the United States of America in 1998, and by Erasure in 2003.