wlrs-tv10

[wlrs-tv10]

About This Blog

Before MTV came to Louisville, Ky., on Oct. 4, 1982, area cable subscribers watched music videos on Chanel No. 10 of the city’s cable franchise. LRS-TV10 was operated by local FM station WRLS-102.7, the city’s first FM station that played rock ’n’ roll music, from around mid-1980 until Oct. 4, 1982, the day MTV was added to cable subscriptions in the city.

The Format LRS-TV10 did not have live hosts, or VJs as they were known on MTV. Rather, 50- to 60-minute blocks of music was played twice a day: noon-2 p.m. every day; 5-11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday or 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Friday and Saturday. After every three or four videos, a voice-over would announce the artists who had been featured and their label. Time in between the blocks was filled with a TV calendar with a live feed from WLRS-FM.

The Music LRS-TV10 played a variety of popular music, but mostly rock ’n’ roll. The lineups had little rhyme or reason. Programming apparently was determined by which videos the record labels sent to WLRS-FM. 

A typical lineup might be: “This Is Radio Clash” by The Clash might be followed by a live performance of “Sister Disco” by The Who, Devo’s “Beautiful World” and then Ronnie Milsap's "I Wouldn't Have Missed It For The World."

Notable popular artists who were absent from the channel included: Bruce Springsteen, Foreigner, Van Halen, AC/DC, Pat Benatar, Journey and David Bowie (who had already made several interesting videos, including “Fashion” with future MTV VJ Alan Hunter). And some of the iconic new wave bands of the late-1970s and early 1980s were also absent, notably: Duran Duran, Madness, Men at Work, Squeeze and Elvis Costello.

But the channel gave exposure to artists that were not played on Louisville-area radio stations, mostly New Wave and Punk bands, such as Devo, Fischer-Z, Classix Nouveaux, The Clash, the Talking Heads and the Ramones.

Awareness LRS-10 did not get a lot of attention during its relative brief on-air life. I don’t recall seeing a story about it on one of the local TV stations or in either of the city’s two daily newspapers. In fact, I don’t remember WLRS-FM disc jockeys mentioning the station that often.

An hour every weekday morning, the station’s morning show, “Morning Sickness,” hosted a TV version of its popular radio program. And WLRS-FM DJ Terry Meiners, one of the “Morning Sickness” co-hosts, hosted a record-review program that aired about once a week, usually on the weekend.

Impact For me, the station was huge and borderline magical. I was 12-14 years old when LRS-10 was on the air, that age when you discover rock ’n’ roll and then begin to find meaning in its songs, which appear to unlock the secrets of life. On days when school let out at noon, I raced home to watch the last 90 minutes of the weekday day programming. I tried to do my homework during the nighttime programming, but I wound up watching the videos more than working on my assignments. My dad hated the channel; he thought it was a waste of time to watch music videos. But for him, music was usually background noise at best, white noise most of the time. My mom occasionally watched the channel, but even she would admonish me for “watching it too much.”

Postscript When you read about MTV’s founding, it’s odd that no one in Louisville, Ky., saw the potential for a 24-hour music video channel. Because apparently nothing was written about LRS-TV10 it’s unknown how popular the channel was in Louisville -- or if anyone at WLRS-FM paid much attention to it. Still, a lot of my friends watched LRS-10, so it’s likely that there was some discussion about the station in city. Maybe if WLRS-FM ownership had paid more attention to their TV product, Louisville, Ky., could have been the birthplace of the music video revolution. Then again, Louisville, Ky., has always been a city to pass on big things.