When I was in college, my fellow classmates would sit in the dorm lounge and watch MTV videos all afternoon. I’d go off to class...they were watching the videos. I’d come back two hours later...same people were watching the videos.
If you were in college during the 80’s (Especially the early 80’s) the MTV video novelty hadn’t worn off yet. Even fairly early on, MTV had it’s game show, ‘Remote Control’ and genre specific shows like ‘Headbanger’s Ball’ and ‘Yo MTV Raps’ and by the 90’s, they had an ‘Unplugged’ event practically every week along with shows that incorporated personalities and events into the video watching ‘Totally Pauly’ and ‘MTV’s Beach House.’ What I’m saying is that they were doing things even early on to keep the attention of viewers. They had to show things other than videos and they had to package the video watching into larger programs.