MTV Celebrates 30th Anniversary With Usher

Celebrating MTV’s 30th anniversary, Usher visited the New York Stock Exchange earlier today in a button up and blue sweater to ring the bell for the special occasion.  The popular network premiered on the airwaves on August 1, 1981 with it’s first video, “Video Killed the Radio Star,” by the Buggles.  Thirty years later, you’d be lucky to catch a video on MTV which popularity stems from reality shows like ‘Jersey Shore’ and ‘Teen Mom’. According to Stephen Friedman, President of the network:

That is a different era. It’s a quantum leap. Our audience is not going to wait very long to see a video; they are going to go online. It’s just not in the realm of their reality. We stay true to the brand and the DNA. It doesn’t surprise us that people who grew up [when we launched] 30 years ago say, ‘Whoa, what happened?’ But they are not the audience we are speaking to.

Check out more photos of Usher at the celebration below